Random World Cup Observations and a couple of milestones...

England are not happy. “Sloppy” fumes Johnno. “Not acceptable”  moans  Haskell. An air of doom and gloom now pervades the English campaign. Jeez fellas – just chillax. Six tries, bonus point secured, job done. Have a beer or two, chuck a few dwarves about and move on to the next match.

Meanwhile Samoan centre Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu has accused the IRB of unfairness in their scheduling of matches and in particular the 3 day turnaround Samoa had before facing Wales. While his claims of Samoa’s treatment being “like slavery, like the holocaust, like apartheid” were crass and inappropriate, the principle behind the argument is sound enough. If, in order to have a 20 team tournament, it is necessary that some teams have to play twice in a week, then surely it is the better resourced Tier 1 countries who should bear the brunt?

Not to be outdone in the controversy stakes, the All Blacks are obviously so insecure that, in the absence of any scandal, they have felt compelled to invent one. Poor Zac Guildford has therefore donned the sackcloth and been paraded in front of the media by New Zealand’s management . His offence? He had a couple of drinks too many in the privacy of the team hotel after New Zealand's Tri-Nations defeat by Australia in Brisbane last month. Seriously.

And finally, I can’t let this moment pass without mention of the fact that this is my 1000th post on this blog. Yes, I’ve managed to find very little of interest to say 1000 times! Nevertheless, this weekend also saw the blog receive its 200,000th visitor. So I may well be blogging a load of old bollocks, but quite a few of you still seem to be reading it! J