The Ferrie Files: Day Ten

That so many were drawn to this meeting of one of the tournament’s best sides with one of the rank outsiders and that the hosts were involved in neither of those record-breaking occasions only served to reinforce the argument that this tournament has taken rugby’s World Cup to a new level in terms of interest and stature.

Just as the current Southern Hemisphere champions had done earlier in the day when Australia crushed Uruguay’s resistance in running in 11 tries and claiming the competition’s biggest victory to date, so Europe’s top team of the past two years asserted themselves against inferior opposition in appropriate fashion.

Never headed at any stage an Ireland side that showed a dozen changes to that which eased past Canada in their previous match, put in a controlled performance, biding their time until chances presented themselves and taking enough of them to have the match won by the interval and the bonus point secured within 62 minutes.

An industrious Romania side that did well to show such energy having played just four days earlier made them work for those scores, shared two apiece by wingers Tommy Bowe and Keith Earls in their respective right and left corners and once they got their they duly relaxed and opened up, a Simon Zebo burst down the left allowing Rob Kearney to western roll his way in for their fifth before the pack drove Chris Henry over.

However as, along with Scotland, one of one of only two teams with a 100 per cent record at the halfway stage the Irish may have been little more than competent so far, but they look to have got everything they wanted from the first two matches with almost all their contenders for starting places in the big matches having been given an opportunity and with competition for places duly having been generated by their performances.

That there has been a significant absentee is also telling since the management decision not to risk Robbie Henshaw after the first choice centre picked up a hamstring strain, speaks to their confidence in their squad.

TALKING POINT

The young scriptwriter would surely have been thrown out of Ridley Scott’s office with a flea in his ear.

“Determined to prove they have absorbed all they need to know from their stricken hero they turn up at the gates of the enemy laying down a challenge,” he had written.

“They are allowed to enter and for an hour they suffer hideous losses, their ranks reduced until it seems they cannot possibly cope, among the stricken two representatives from the same tribe who had taken the places of previously fallen heroes. One of their number has, however, taken the place of their hero and landed mortal blow after mortal blow, while a giant figure takes every break in the action to rally those who remain as the stretcher bearers are allowed time to tend to, then remove those no longer able to participate, from the arena.

“Somehow they rouse themselves to one, final magnificent effort and, fresh cavalry surging down an unguarded flank, they strike a surprise attack, deep at the heart of the enemy. Still there is time, though and the superior force drives relentlessly forward once more, until its general makes a dreadful error when, rather than save the day and move on to another when his superior numbers will surely tell, he goes for the quick kill and instead allows the giant to leap into action once more and ensure the victory.”

The great movie director’s head would surely have rolled back in despair.

“Too cheesy… way too cheesy,” he would have concluded, while perhaps also wondering how his backers’ demands that he produce several more sequels could be satisfied if this sort of climax was to occur so early on.

That is the challenge facing World Cup organisers after a match that should not have lived up to the billing some had given it, of being the greatest ever England v Wales encounter, arguably did so on Saturday.

This was another extraordinary odds-defying triumph for Warren Gatland, the coaching genius who has now steered more Wales teams to victories over England at Twickenham in eight years than the combined might mustered by Scotland has managed in almost 90 years.

With Leigh Halfpenny, the marksman whose accuracy had won them many previous battle and fellow Lion Jonathan Davies among the huge list of Welsh casualties ahead of it, their replacements in the starting line-up, Liam and Scott Williams, were both carried from the field during a brutal second half.

Dan Biggar kept on landing his goals, though, while Alun Wyn Jones, their towering lock, along with Sam Warburton, their captain, urged the rest to stay in the fight until reinforcements, most tellingly in the form of the very least experienced of the Williams’, could get up to pace and play their part.

The cool-headed way in which replacement Lloyd Williams first stretched the English defence, then spotted the weakness in their cover to slide his cross-field grubber into the path of Gareth Davies for what proved the match-winning try was as remarkable as Chris Robshaw’s decision thereafter to spurn the chance to tie the match, an outcome that would surely have favoured England with their superior overall man-power, not least given the damage inflicted in the course of this battle.

The fear for organisers has to be that this tournament has peaked too soon since it is impossible to see how the quality of the drama that unfolded on Saturday can be matched, let alone surpassed.

Yet sport has a way of addressing these things and, even in the short term, at the end of an Ashes summer this weekend’s England v Australia match could hardly be a more mouth-watering prospect.

The scene is set for rugby’s greatest ever tournament if this pace can be maintained, but after Saturday’s spectacle it is hard to imagine how.

AND ANOTHER THING . . .

In the dark north a prosperous but unacclaimed Emperor rubs his hands in glee as full details of the conflict emerge.

The way the southern tribes have ripped one another to shreds means his army, previously discounted as one failure has followed another, could yet achieve the goal of global domination he claimed was his strategy and which the wise elders condemned as the dreaming of a lunatic.

He has sought to match the sorceror who has out-witted all others in these parts with another from the same distant lands.

His man may not be the master tactician his compatriot has proven to be, but he perhaps knows enough to be able to capitalise when faced with weakened foes…

GOOD DAY

For Warren Gatland as he savours another stature reinforcing victory, along with those achieved previously across Europe with Ireland, Wasps and Wales and in his native antipodes with Waikato and the British & Irish Lions.

Unlike after his many previous achievements there was no prize to brandish in the way of silverwarematch, but the pride generated among the New Zealander’s adopted countrymen was surely reward enough for a great rugby man.

Gatland’s post-match claim that Wales ultimately wanted the victory more can be interpreted as condemnation of their hosts who have every incentive to achieve at this tournament, but are better seen as speaking to the depth of the culture he has masterfully tapped into in a tiny but rugby-obsessed part of the world.

BAD DAY

For Warren Gatland as he surveys the casualty list that has seen an already injury-ravaged squad brought to a point where it is almost impossible to see how they can continue to cope.

It was one thing sending out the latest batch of reinforcements when, with so many key players already ruled out, three more of his backs were either carried or helped from the field, looking exceedingly unlikely to take any further part in this tournament. However it is quite another to try to find a way of competing in what he would have hoped would be another five matches of the highest intensity wondering who can reinforce the reinforcements.

Any future failure at this World Cup will surely be mitigated by these factors that must considered completely outwith the head coach’s control. No type of preparation could have protected his squad from the damage inflicted upon it, but a national team representing a country Wales’ size cannot conceivably be expected to asborb the casualty list it has and keep coming up with comparable talent.

“We’ve run out of players at the moment… but this was about courage,” he said after Saturday’s game.

It will take more than that to negotiate the next month and more of rugby successfully, but if anyone can find a way it is Gatland and, in the meantime, he seems fully vindicated in his dismissal of last week’s sanctimonious tripe about Wales’ breach of the “spirit of the rules” when bringing in additional players not yet in their official squad, to train with them.

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Not a lot as a strange gap opens in the schedule with just one match – the low-key meeting of Tonga and Namibia – scheduled in the next three days.