Anyway, status quo.  The Boers and the Wobblies still the teams to be wary of as the tournament progresses.  The Boers were clinical in dispatching the worst looking Pom team I have ever seen.  The score of 36-0 was a fair indication, with the Poms lucky to keep their score to zero.  If you could score negative in a rugby match, they certainly deserved to.  The Bokke didn't put them away as they should have though, were pretty robotic, looking good, but not unbeatable by a long chalk.

While on the subject of those awful Poms, the title of Awfulest Pom would have to go to Andy Farrell.  Poor bastard, should never have been selected to play for England, let alone be entrusted with the kick to restart play.  The look of concentration and terror on his face as he got ready for each kick - it was a real "for foks sake get this right, head down, watch the ball, follow through", he was so far out of his depth he was seeing some as yet undiscovered species of deep water fish...

The Aussies, the other team that could knock over this All Black side blazed away at the Coal Miners for 40 minutes to put the game away, before slowing down in the second spell.  The loss of Bernie Larkham until the semi or quarter finals is a blow, as is the injury to Mortlock's shoulder.  While not tournament ending for either of them, it certainly makes it hard coming back for knock out matches with bugger all games under the belt.

Ahhh, again, no other team that I saw or read about looks likely to strike fear into a decent Super 14 side, let alone one of the big three Southern Hemisphere teams.  France the sleepers of course, and they got back on track thumping Namibia.  The 87 points the Frogs scored is their highest score in an international test match.  In this day and age you would have thought that they have scored more than that in the past, but there you go.

So public enemies numbers one and two still the Boers and Wobblies, with again, the Frogs lurking within striking distance.

Those Scots too, they might be a bit tougher than we expect when we strike them next weekend.  They seem to be the best performing of the 6N teams at this stage.  While that is not saying much, an Italian type start would be very nice when we take them on, even if they do field a second string XV.