Strap yourselves in and hold on tight — this Rugby World Cup will boast seriously competitive matches that can genuinely go either way.
France will make this a tournament to savour, from the match atmosphere to the general public’s love for rugby, the buzz around this World Cup is unbelievably exciting. The tournament will kick off with a bang and continue right the way through.
France v New Zealand is a bona-fide blockbuster to open the tournament on Friday night, then it is straight into England v Argentina on Saturday, and Scotland v South Africa and Wales v Fiji on Sunday.
From the atmosphere to the build-up, even how they announce players in the stadium, the French just do their rugby really, really well.
When a home side in France gets on top, a wave of noise crashes through the stadium — and sometimes there is nothing you can do about that if you are the opposition team.
Suddenly the hosts have their tails up, they start throwing the most outrageous passes, every offload sticks — and you think ‘that wasn’t happening five minutes ago’. Then the crowd and the momentum start to play a factor.
The biggest advice I was given in my playing career was to get ahead early and stay ahead, because then the crowd gets more frustrated, then the players’ heads go down and momentum shifts your way.
London Irish pulled off a 44-7 win at Stade Francais in 2017 in the European Challenge Cup, that remains a memorable night.
That victory went exactly to type, in that we grabbed a lead and were then able to hold on to it, before the home supporters got tetchy, the home players lost interest and we ran away with it at the end.
Players at this World Cup will have to embrace the hostility, go into that menacing territory and come away with a famous win.
France, South Africa and Ireland will be there and thereabouts as favourites, with New Zealand never far away either.
Those teams have delivered in a way that points the route to tournament glory: big ball-carriers for consistent front-foot ball, but entertainers behind the packs who can score from close- and long-range. All those teams can attack in a multitude of ways.
While those are the four teams at the top, this is also a very open tournament. Fiji, Tonga and Samoa can all thrive, with Argentina, England and Scotland to threaten as well, and Italy and Wales have it in them to cause an upset.
This World Cup could produce more shock results than ever – but actually those ‘shocks’ would be based on history, rather than the past month’s build-up.
Players at this World Cup will have to embrace the hostility, go into that menacing territory and come away with a famous win
Given the past few weeks, if Fiji beat Wales that is not actually a shock, similarly if Fiji turn over Australia. Historically, that is a shock, but Fiji are in a better place than those sides right now.
Every World Cup turns youngsters or relatively less well-known players into household names. Fans should be excited about seeing England’s Henry Arundell, South Africa’s Kurt-Lee Arendse and Canan Moodie, and New Zealand’s Will Jordan.
If England can get former London Irish wing Arundell onto the field, he can be explosive on the ball and do some real damage. Arundell’s sublime solo try for Irish against Toulon and his snapshot score against Australia have put him on teams’ radar, but he has all the assets to shine.
Arendse is a wing in the Cheslin Kolbe mould: small, nippy but can score tries from anywhere and get the crowd on their feet. Moodie has bolted into the squad and proved his worth, and he is a centre or wing with total star quality.
People will already know about Jordan with the All Blacks, as he is not that young now at 25. But the World Cup try-record sits at eight for a single tournament — and I would not be betting against Jordan to be in the running to go past that mark.
This will be my first World Cup, and it is a massive honour to be reporting on the England camp for ITV, and writing for London’s finest the Evening Standard.
Four years after retiring from playing, I am extremely thankful for a new career that I take very seriously, and which I aim to do justice.
