Rugby World Cup: Who can spring surprise during this weekend’s quarter-finals?

“Throughout this tournament the so-called easy games aren’t easy any more”, said All Blacks captain Richie McCaw. But this year, Mike Tolkin’s squad travelled after an encouraging summer and with hopes of one win or two from Pool B, or even an unheard-of three and thus a quarter-final place.

Wales are not the only side with more losses in the ledger than wins.

WR helped secure the services of other worldwide Rugby luminaries to join his coaching team and provide the technical expertise Japan showed on the pitch, Egan said.

“A lot of them have been here since the start of the tournament and they’ve got no doubt we’re going to win this thing”.

Nor were Japan the only Tier Two team to create lasting memories. Lastly, the thistle of Scotland will stand against an Australian onslaught. Alas, the Scots’ fitness and superior bench reserves told, and the game finished 39-16 to the Six Nations team.

Namibia did not play a single match against a top-15 team between the last World Cup and this one.

“There were a few good signs”, he continued. The team played very well and were the better side to that point. World Rugby does not determine these schedules and it would require England, for example, to forfeit a few of the estimated £10million they generate from a match against Rugby Championship opposition in order to help rugby to take off in Eastern Europe.

The second half, however, read much the same as the other second halves for the Eagles. One selling four tickets wrote: “Sale due to recent bereavement: the death of English rugby!!!” “I want to spend time focusing on my family and my transition back to work”. “It is the most exciting World Cup we have ever seen”. Coach Tolkin selected a mix of overseas pros and home-based semi-pros. They also became the first team to win three pool matches and not make the quarterfinals.

New Zealand, South Africa and Australia have won the World Cup twice each, but only in 1995 was there an all-southern hemisphere final when Francois Pienaar’s Springboks went a small way to uniting a nation by beating New Zealand at Ellis Park. Who were the winners and losers of the eliminated teams? But you look at those teams knocked out: Canada, Georgia, Namibia, us … we have squads containing a number of amateur players. When England can make 10 million pounds from a sold-out Twickenham match against Australia every year, it is tough to expect them to hand over a precious global slot to play Romania or Georgia.

Plans are longstanding for a USA domestic professional league, to begin play before the 2019 World Cup in Japan. “We recognise the challenge of that and that is a situation we have to fix”.

Japan were coached by former Australia coach Eddie Jones – born in Australia to an Australian father and a Japanese-American mother – who led Australia to victory in the Tri-Nations in 2001.

“The players and coaches have done their bit in terms of the tournament but when it comes down to it it will be the negotiating skills of our CEO and our president across the table that will ultimately define what happens in the end”, Haig said. The building blocks are nearly in place.

Bath winger Horacio Agulla has also had limited game time for Argentina as they progressed from Pool C as runners-up behind New Zealand, with three wins from their four fixtures. While New Zealand’s first visit to Samoa and Wales’s tour of Japan are to be applauded, they are rare cases.

South Africa kick off the knockout rounds at Twickenham against an injury-ravaged Welsh side on Saturday night, and New Zealand bid to exorcise the ghosts of defeats to France in 1999 and 2007 later at the Millennium Stadium. Melville was not to be drawn there either. We’ve had the fan zone, we’ve had four fantastic games.

This weekend, then, American rugby will look on as the big eight go into battle.

Although Scotland and Wales face heavyweights Australia and South Africa respectively this weekend, Ireland against the Pumas on Sunday has been the bigger draw for neutral fans.