This is the home straight. Seven days from now all 20 teams will be here, the meeting and greeting over, the bookies will have fixed their odds and the months – years even – of speculation will be (almost) a thing of the past.
We will know the Fiji side to play England next Friday night. The Ireland, South Africa and France sides for the following day and possibly the Wales and New Zealand squads for their openers on the Sunday. However, if you think the hand-wringing will be over, then forget it. As Wales discovered at the weekend, cruel strokes are part of rugby and there will be plenty in the six weeks before the World Cup is over. It is part of the ongoing narrative.
Last time, in New Zealand, the everlasting issues were Dan Carter’s knee and Richie McCaw’s foot and whether either would last the course; one did, one didn’t, winning the cup on one foot. And remember Stephen Donald, the fly-fisherman called back from holiday to kick the winning points and prolong what turned out to be a lucrative late career? At some stage the cameras and pundits will refocus on the understudies.
Take England. After last weekend and what should have been a more comfortable victory over Ireland, we probably know Stuart Lancaster’s starting XV against Fiji because it is short odds on being the same as ran out at Twickenham a week ago.
Barring a bit of head-scratching over the locks and the value of Courtney Lawes’ disruptive defence against the extra power and all-round game offered by Joe Launchbury, my guess is that all the thinking has been done. That said, I doubt that filling in the other eight names to make up the matchday squad will be so easy. At least I hope it won’t be because last Saturday night’s bench was a huge gamble, one best kept to games when, in theory at least, the score does not matter.
I wouldn’t grumble if shirts 16 to 20 were again filled by Jamie George, Mako Vunipola, Kieran Brookes, Launchbury and Billy Vunipola but there are real issues with the remaining three replacements, the philosophy behind their selection and what Lancaster and his coaching team expect from their bench.
Once replacements were there in case of injury but no longer. Injury is almost a tangential argument to a central theme of finding guys who will make a difference and, if necessary, change the game.
With the big boys that is easy. The Vunipola brothers are the impact players, the guys who, ball in hand, punch dents in tiring defences. The front-rows swap around after an hour – fresh legs when the starting trio can hardly walk. Launchbury for the lighter, less physical Geoff Parling is when the lineout argument has been won and lost and the scrum needs extra grunt.
But what next? What of the three guys who make their impact by changing how the game is being played? The guys to implement Plan B when, with an hour gone, England are eight points down against Wales, Australia or even Fiji?
Is Richard Wigglesworth a game-changer? I can think of Tests when I would have started with the Saracens scrum-half, rather than Ben Youngs. In attritional matches, when territory is at a premium, he is the nine with the best kicking game in the country, the guy whose box kicks either hang over a wing, inviting the chaser on to the ball, or force the back three to back pedal.
But were England chasing a game and Ben Youngs needed replacing, wouldn’t you go for the zip and mayhem of Danny Care’s game?
And Sam Burgess? Much has been said and written about Burgess but bringing him off the bench last Saturday was merely an excuse for a handful of extra minutes’ game time, not the addition of a game-changing element. Surely the only reason for picking Burgess in the matchday squad is an irrational belief that Brad Barritt, now seemingly irreplaceable, has to be changed with like for like or as close to it as England have in camp.
With the England pack taking a step back from a game based around a dominant, territory-winning, points-accruing, scrum and the need for a play-maker who is not Ford, because that is too predictable, then Alex Goode has to be part of the matchday 23.
Which brings us to the undoubted star of the England warm-up series, but a player who, barring injury, I cannot see will get a game, unless it is against Uruguay.
The attraction of Henry Slade is there for all to see. He plays 10, 12, 13 and full-back, has a kick like a mule and can pass a player into space like no one else in the England World Cup party, bar George Ford. In that first warm-up game against France Slade caused panic in French ranks every time he touched the ball. On debut for England he looked the most mature back on the field, creating one try with ice-cool judgment and a precision pass while crafting a second as stand-in fly-half.
Most countries would kill for such talent – and such utility – but barring the kind of injury-prompted opportunities which revealed Anthony Watson and Jonathan Joseph as the talents they are, it is hard to see the Exeter man getting a run when it matters.
