World Cup Country Profiles - Canada

The real title of this piece is "Oh Canada! or I Learned Everything I Know About Canada and Canadian Rugby from Wikipedia".

As a major country within the British Empire, Canada has to play rugby. It's mandatory. India and Pakistan get away with it by playing cricket really well. The Canadians were caught trying their hands at cricket just recently, but have some way to go to be taken even half seriously there. So really it's rugby that keeps them in the Commonwealth. They've been a staple at all five World Cups so far, and of course are about to embark on their sixth campaign. And they regularly whomp their nextdoor neighbour, the USA, which must be particularly satisfying.

It's probably lucky for the rest of the rugby world that Canadians would far rather play ice hockey than rugby. For some reason, they're hooked on the game that is really just organised fighting with sticks, helmets (sometimes), a puck and knives on your boots. Ice hockey players look down on rugby players as pussies. Whereas in New Zealand mums pull their kids out of rugby and make them play football because rugby's too dangerous for widdle pumpkin-y-wumpkin-y, in Canada mums/moms pull their kids out of ice hockey and make them play rugby. So when it comes to picking and choosing from the best athletes in the country, Canadian rugby often doesn't have quite the selection that other countries might have.

In fact, and no offence to the Canadians, it's quite hard to think of many outstanding Canadian players. Their best known player would arguably be Gareth Rees, the big-kicking first-five eighth (or fly-half, for all you northerners). Rees wouldn't have looked out of place in most first fifteens around the world. Their big number 8, Al Charron, also comes to mind. As does front rower, Rod Snow. However, Rees and Charon are not pulling on their playing boots any more, and Snow is not as young as he used to be. The current crop of players do not light the recognition registers in most rugby fans around the world.

Although do look out for giant winger Justin Mensah-Coker, standing 6ft 5in (or 195cm) and weighing 16 and a half stone (or 106kg). And then there's the equally ginormous, and just as stupendously named, Mike Pyke (196cm and 104kg). Pyke also plays on the wing, or he can swap to fullback where opposing players need to come prepared with step-ladders to out-jump him on those up-and-unders. Pyke scored an intercept try against the All Blacks in Hamilton this year. If there's one thing the Canadians won't lack, it's size.

So, Canada are a bit of an enigma when it comes to rugby. They're not a third-tier minnow, but sometimes don't quite seem like a second-tier team; probably something to do with having their top players playing in overseas leagues and not getting them back for every match. When they do fire, the Canucks can pick up the odd impressive scalp or two: a 26-24 win over Wales in 1993 (at Cardiff Arms Park, no less!), an 18-16 win over France in 1994 (the year, it should be noted, of the "try from the ends of the earth": the French left Canada to clinch a two-zip test series win over the All Blacks in New Zealand with one of the greatest tries ever seen), a 26-23 win over Scotland in 2002, a couple of wins over Argentina and a 27-all draw against Ireland in 2000.

Canada also had a very good world cup in 1991: they finished second in their pool behind France and won the right to play New Zealand in the quarterfinals. Everybody expected a hiding by the Blacks, but the Canucks showed fighting spirit in only losing by 29 points to 13.

Canada's results in 2007, unfortunately, don't really point to them being a force this time around: a couple of hidings to the NZ Māori 59-23 and the All Blacks 64-13, plus another beating by Ireland A in the Churchill Cup, 39-20, versus some hidings in the other direction: a 40-point drubbing of the States plus two easy wins over Portugal. So it seems they're very much in the middle at the moment. It must be said that in their game against the All Blacks, the Canucks held their own for much of the game, and gave up their points grudgingly. They displayed a typical hard-nosed attitude that should serve them well. However, the lack of true game-breakers will tell, and they will struggle to make the quarterfinals this year.

The Canucks play Wales first up at Stade de la Beaujoire in Nantes on 9 September (a loss), followed by Fiji at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff on 16 September (I'm picking a win, although should be close: Fiji are ranked 12th in the world, Canada 13th), then Japan at Stade Chaban-Delmas in Bordeaux on 25 September (a win) and finally Australia at the same venue on 29 September (unfortunately for the Canadians, a hiding). They should come third in their pool - not quite good enough for a quarterfinal spot.

Warne bats for fatherland

In a recent shock admission, cricketing and sometime romantic legend Shane Warne has come clean about his German roots. Contemplating a life without cricket, the aging romeo has decided to exercise his right to take up German citizenship to play for England county side Hampshire.

Confused? So is Australia.

Warne is alleged to have said, "Look you jokers, this is the best option for me in the long run. I know I'll be renouncing my Australian citizenship for 40 silver, but how many bloody icons does a country really need?

"When it all comes down to brass tacks, a man's gotta do what feels right.

"Being German makes me feel like I'm finally at home. Look at why I always hated Herschel Gibbs for example. The name just sounds Jewish."

World Cup Country Profiles - Wales

Although everyone knows it, it bears repeating: Wales invented singing, phlegm, Tom Jones, singing with phlegm and Barry John, in that order.

The Singing

One of the must-do experiences of world rugby, nay world sport, is to be at the Millennium Stadium (Stadiwm y Mileniwm, nee Cardiff Arms Park the National Stadium) for a Wales v New Zealand rugby match. (Update: thanks Miramar Michael; Cardiff Arms Park is still with us; the Dropkicks' lack of research skills strikes again!) With any luck, Byron Kelleher won't be part of the haka, but even he at his patriotic worst wouldn't be able to be noticed above the strains of "Bread of Heaven", which will be emanating from 80,000 Welsh mouths and moving air at pressures usually reserved for jumbo jets and jackhammers.

The Phlegm

When in Wales, or around Welshmen, always keep an umbrella handy, especially if the locals, or other said Welshmen, insist on conversing in their mother tongue. You just try saying Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch without needing to rehydrate halfway through. A towel would not go astray either. Had the Earth not been destroyed by the Vogon Constructor Fleet, its odds on that Douglas Adams would have mentioned the humble towel in just such a phlegm-negating capacity.

Tom Jones

Well, he's just a sex-bomb, boyo.

Singing with Phlegm

Take a towel with you to the Millennium Stadium.

Barry John

Ah, here we go. Actually, I could have replaced Barry John with JPR Williams, or Gareth Edwards, Mervyn Davies, Phil Bennett. Heck, any one of the team from the Golden Age in the 1970s. Six Five Nations trophies. Grand Slams. Triple Crowns. The glory years. The years Wales would dearly love to be repeated.

If there is any country even remotely like New Zealand when it comes to the spirituality of rugby, it is Wales. Some say it is the sheep. Some say it is the effect of being the neighbour of a bigger country that tends to ignore you, or at least pats you on the head patronisingly whenever you produce your latest seaside crayon masterpiece with birds that look like m's. Some say it is the green rolling hills. Some say it's Graham Henry, the Great Redeemer. No one says it's the coal mines. And it's definitely not the singing. (If there's one thing a group of New Zealand supporters can do, it's suck the sound out of the opposing supporters. We're so un-noisy we actively consume sound waves.)

Whatever the reason for our relative sameness, rugby has merely reinforced the notion. We both found we had a want for the game, and we both had the physical and mental attributes to command fear in the opposition's eyes. Had the World Cup been invented 80 years ago, the three countries most engraved upon the trophy would be New Zealand, South Africa and Wales. Wales used to be that good.

I say "used to" because, although the All Blacks still make other teams yearn to be elsewhere when playing them, the Welsh have spent the last 25 years working out how best to position themselves on their downward slide. It is doubtful that the average Welsh fan looks back at the last couple of decades with much nostalgia. Sure, there were some high points: Five Nations' crowns in 1988 and 1994 and a Six Nations' crown in 2005. And then there were 10 wins in a row in the late 1990s: a resurgence that never really caught on. But in the main, Wales has suffered terribly at the hands of the Big Five nations, and has found its pride battered as it has struggled against supposed minnows.

Will the class of '07 be able to reverse the downward slide? Not on the Welsh team's results so far this year. Equal bottom of the Six Nations with Scotland. Below Italy. Ouch. A loss to Italy. Double ouch. A loss to Scotland. Oof. A record loss to England in a warm-up match, and although this was a Welsh team without many of its top players, it can only have been psychologically damaging. Thok. Wales also had two losses on the road in Australia: one they could perhaps have won with an ounce more luck, but in the other they got thumped. Kapow. One positive has been their most recent win over Argentina, 27-20. Is this the beginning of yet another Welsh rennaisance, or was it just a game they were lucky to win and life will go on as it has these past 25 years?

Wales are in Pool B, and start their campaign against the Canadians at Stade la Beaujoire on Sunday 9 September. They then travel back home to Cardiff and the Millennium Stadium to face Australia on Saturday 15 September. They then travel precisely nowhere to play Japan on Thursday 20 September. Their final pool match is against Fiji, back at Stade la Beaujoire on Saturday 29 September. It's hard not to see them finishing second in that pool and heading off to Marseille and playing (and probably getting thumped by) South Africa in the third quarterfinal.

No wagging tales

French newsagents came out today in support of the decision of the NZRFU to ban WAGs (wives and girlfriends) from hotel rooms for the duration of the World Cup.

Alain DuFrost, head of the French newsprint society expressed extreme delight at the prospect of a large number of players and managers isolated from their partners for the duration.

"It is magnifique," DuFrost stated, "the All Blacks are highly paid professionals. This, along with the Australian curfew on players and their all-night drinking of the wine will ensure a roaring trade for French pornographers.

"We have doubled the price for this occasion."

World Cup Country Profiles - Namibia

I hate to burst the bubble of any dedicated fans out there, but Namibia are not going to win the World Cup. If a recent 103-13 loss to South Africa is anything to go by, Namibia are a side that exists for two reasons. Two potentially provide South Africa with players, and to provide South Africa with statistics to inflate the careers of those players...

All that said, the Welwitschias are a feisty team made up of of what looks to be the same German-Dutch stock who colonised South Africa.

In other words, big, ugly, squared-headed bastards who like their meat dried in a cage.

Yes. So just when you thought one country full of these buggers was enough, it turns out it gave birth to another in 1990.

Namibia kicks off their short stint at the World Cup with an September 9 opener against Ireland. They are then playing France on September 16, Argentina on September 22, and thrash Georgia on September 26. Maybe.