Paris, Dublin, Johannesburg (20/9 – 15)

The 2023 Rugby World Cup will contest what will arguably be the grandest game in the Pool Stage this weekend. On Saturday night, 23 September 2023, South Africa and Ireland go head-to-head in Pool B, at Stade de France, Paris: the world number two against world number one. All will witness a reigning world champion versus a team with a winning streak extending from July 2022.

Both teams dive in with two wins from their opening games. The Springboks won 18-3 against Scotland – and then obliterated Romania 76-0. Meanwhile, Ireland have been barely tested, as they got an 82-8 win over Romania and 59-16 over Tonga. This will in fact be the first time that Ireland and South Africa have met at a World Cup.

But in the last meeting between them on 5 November 2022, Ireland won 19-16. Johnny Sexton scored 9 of Ireland’s 19 points in that game. Sexton is still Ireland’s main man in the 2023 Rugby World Cup, having scored 40 of Ireland’s 141 points with 3 tries, 11 conversions, and 1 penalty.

In his last performance against Tonga, Sexton became Ireland’s all-time top points scorer with 1090. “I’m very proud to do it, but tonight it was more important getting the win and moving on to what is such a massive game (against South Africa) this coming week,” he said.

With Sexton and company on fire, Ireland have already scored 141 points, the top number so far in this year’s World Cup.

South Africa doesn’t have a “Johnny Sexton” in their ranks, at least in the first two matches. Makazole Mapimpi, Cobus Reinach, and Damian Willemse share scoring responsibility, with 15 points each. The Springboks are basically unpredictable.

Against Romania, South Africa made 14 player changes to a team that ran on for an opening 18-3 win against Scotland. That is naturally a prime concern for Ireland. “They are the type of guys who come up with new plans and tricky little things in new games,” said Ireland’s scrum-half Connor Murray. “So you have to be prepared for everything.”

Defence is another strength of the defending champion.

The Springboks only conceded 3 points from two games, against Scotland and Romania. In fact, South Africa only conceded two tries in their last eight games at the tournament. Their current run includes shutouts against Namibia, Italy, Japan, England, Scotland, and Romania.

Their points aggregate across those eight games marked 343 scored and 47 conceded. “This team has always prided itself on defence, so I am extremely happy,” The Springboks’ head coach Jacques Nienaber said in the wake of the 76-0 victory over Romania.

The winner of this massive match will be in the driver’s seat of Pool B, with a possible matchup against New Zealand in the next round. The loser will likely claim second place in Pool B and potentially face France in the first round of the knockout stages. “It will be a big game, in terms of who finishes one and two in the pool, but there are still games to play after this match,” said Nienaber. “I don’t want to get too far ahead. If it’s Italy, if it’s France or New Zealand, it’s going to be a tough quarterfinal, it doesn’t matter who we play.”

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Paris, Auckland, Sydney (9/9 – 10)

Disclaimer. This article may offend you. Well, tough luck, go and read the science section or volunteer for the Girl Scouts. This is men’s rugby. Redneck, muscles and unabashed violence. Not suitable for the “Woke Generation”. Swearing, alcohol consumption and “guy talk” included. Political correctness? Dumped in the Men’s Room with the rest of the waste.

There was once a myth going that claimed that “All Blacks are unbeatable”. Like, “the Russians are invincible and can’t be beaten”, “Americans are the Gods of basketball” (but beaten by the darn Krauts, whoever would have imagined…), and so forth. The All Blacks were beaten, whipped, destroyed. And who, the French of all the people. Well-deserved. The myth has sprung a leak! Deflated! Is no more!

In a disastrous first round, All Black staggered into the Hall of Infamy. The Paris opening of the World Cup witnessed an historical first: blacks defeated, humiliatingly, in the first round. Now dear reader – let this sink in for a second. Is this the End of Empire? The ominous Advent of a toppling of the Rugby World Order? What calamitous effect will this wreak on the beer price economy in New Zealand (BURP) and across the globe, since Steinlager is banished from the shirts, replaced by some smirking, holy-woke, politically correct Helen Clark.

Alas! Sainted Jonah Lomu rotates in his grave. We hear the grave echo of heads smacking in Paris. No longer a freight train in ballet shoes gracing us with the myth of all Blacks but more like a snarling catcall of Butterfingers! and Jelly Legs! Constantly fumbling the ball.

What indeed is the epitaph of the Kiwis? “Sluggish, erratic and well [cussword here]. “Gentleman… lads… chums… hello, what’s with the triple S-play?’ was the moan from one disbelieving fan, shaking his head sadly, as he ordered a large tankard of French brew to booze his sorrows away, hissing “I thought this was a World Cup match – not the Auckland secondary school try-outs”.

Another fan changed out his All-Black shirt, parading around in his white undershirt. “I’d rather go naked!”, he muttered to his wife, who was attempting without success to console him.

It was painfully pitiful to watch the All Blacks “trying out” a technical rugby, a strategy which experts had vociferously warned would fail. And fail it did, wow did it ever: a colorless game, no fire – just burning up the clock: Kiwi play was pathetic, whatever it was called. Certainly not “All Black rugby”.

Repeated errors, sluggish moves – a “high school level” bereft of any coherent strategy. Another fan moaned quietly to his French friends “If this is the new All Blacks style of A-game, it’s best they forfeit the next match and go home with their tails between their legs, to spare us any embarrassment. His French friends, slyly snickering with justified schadenfreude, pretended to feel sorry for their sorrowful fellow sports lover.

We need to bear in mind that This is Paris, the blood-soaked theater of riots, revolutions, the Black Bloc – which compared to the All Blacks evinced more power, dependably. Thus the gleam of the guillotine for foreign interlopers. Ask the hordes of pretty girls who periodically lose their heads in Paris. This squad in fact looked truly unfit. Sluggish plays gave way to a Wehrmacht tank formation mowing down the Maginot line. Head on – and stuck each time.

And, did I just manage to communicate just how atrocious it was?

The French smartly snapped up the edge, thanks to New Zealand’s ill-conceived plays. The All Blacks conceded penalty after woesome penalty, as French fullback Thomas Ramos did the job on them, scoring 17 of Les Bleus’s points with his murderously accurate right foot. Note: do not blame the squad. It was the mule-headed leadership who picked the strategy. They seem to have overlooked the reality that the World Cup is no testing ground for whether “flavor of the month” pet theory they might concoct: it is not amateur hour. The grown-ups are in charge.

And speaking of “adult entertainment” (snicker). Entry to the painfully-humiliating spectacle were as painful as a spinal tap: 750 to 1,750 Euros for the masochistic pleasure of witnessing a ringside tragedy, a myth sent straight to Hell.

Playing in front of a packed crowd of 82,000 at Stade de France, the monumental defeat was an historical first for New Zealand: never before had the All Blacks been defeated in a pool stage of the Rugby World Cup. Always invincible, All Blacks had before this match won 31 out of 31 pool matches, since the Rugby World Cup premiere in 1987.

It was also their most devastating loss in World Cup history. The 14-point margin eclipsed World Cup losses to France in 1999 (31-43), Australia in a 2003 semi-final (10-22), and England in 2019 (7-19).

Any dedicated fam will assure you that New Zealand are one of two powerhouses in the Rugby World Cup: along with South Africa, All Blacks have swept up the most titles. In 1987, 2011, and 2015, New Zealand took home the Webb Ellis Cup. New Zealand never missed a tournament, finishing second in 1995, third in 1991, 2003, and 2019, and fourth in 1999.

Their worst performance was in the 2007 edition, when the All Blacks only managed to reach the quarter final. This year they marched in confidently, assured of winning their fourth title. Instead, it was their Stalingrad.

Well, we always can nurture the hope that this was indeed a) some magic, brilliant Eisenhower strategy, storming the beaches and sending the Germans running – but with only one hiccup (no German team in play), or b) all the other teams will succumb to the mythical “long Covid” and turn blind and deaf. That seems unlikely. So, no miracle will miraculously save them, as long as whoever dreamed up this idiotic strategy – one that even a 2-year old can figure out – is in force.

In fact, to see the All Blacks play this badly is no real surprise: there was a signal that they would not perform well in this year’s World Cup: two weeks previously, the All Blacks suffered their all-time heaviest margin of defeat, routed a humiliating 7-35 by South Africa.

Despite such a cascade of Waterloos, All Blacks Head Coach Ian Foster still talks tough, adamant that team confidence in a fourth World Cup glory is still intact. “I don’t think we have to rebuild,” Foster said. “In the past, we’ve won all our pool games and not won the tournament. Our goal is to win this tournament. We’re frustrated we lost a game. We fired some good bullets at them. We just didn’t fire enough.”.

It takes a very confident leader to predict glory after such a defeat. Look, you don’t have to be a Napoleon nor a Churchill (he too made plenty of screw-ups), to see what works and what does not. Two major losses and a zero running game. Let me clue you in, Ian, mate: this is not soccer. This is rugby. A man’s man game. Hey, I bet you the girls’ rugby team kicks your champs’ ass – because right now, this is no winning show. Chess is more fun to watch than All Blacks. Now I apologize for dropping the brutal truth: I do so hope I am proven wrong.

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Frankfurt, Brussels (3/7 – 27)

France has been plagued by multiple outbreaks of rioting following mass protests over the death of a teenager at the hands of a police officer last week. The death of Nahel M. (17), teenager of North African descent, has stoked anger among the public at police violence against minorities and exacerbated existing racial tensions in France.

Protests have spread beyond the capital city of Paris and its suburban areas, to other major cities, including Lyon, Marseille, Le Havre, Toulouse and Nantes. On Sunday (2/7/2023), a day after Nahel’s funeral in Nanterre, 719 people were arrested in a sweep according to the AFP News Agency. The previous night,  French police had arrested more than 1,300 rioters, some 45 police officers were injured, 577 vehicles burnt and 74 buildings invaded and looted. At one point, there were numerous fires on the streets and in public spaces, at a whopping 871 locations.

Vincent Jeanbrun, Mayor of the Parisian suburb, L’Haÿ-les-Roses, reported that his home was attacked early Sunday morning, calling it “an assassination attempt”. His wife and two children, ages 5 and 7, fled to safety through the back yard, with the mayor’s wife sustaining a broken bone while escaping. Police discovered a Molotov cocktail in a Coke bottle.

Nahel was shot by police in Paris on Tuesday (27/6/2023). A video footage of the scene of the shooting showed Nahel speeding off in his yellow Mercedes AMG almost hitting an officer and other vehicles.

The video footage of 17 year old, Nahel’s attempted escape from the police and subsequent shooting that killed him circulated on social media, sparking street protests which degenerated into flash rioting and smash-and-grab violence. Several cities then implemented a ban on demonstrations.

The video footage of his attempted escape and subsequent shooting quickly circulated on social media, sparking street protests which soon degenerated into rioting and smash-and-grab violence. Several cities then implemented a ban on demonstrations, as neighboring countries issued travel warnings. The escalating event was an echo of three-week-long riots in 2005, which were triggered by the death of two teenagers who were hiding from police. The insurrection forced the French government to declare a state of emergency.

Activists claim Nahel’s ethnic background played a role in the teenager’s shooting, an accusation denied by the police and the government. The French pride themselves in the famed secularism (or referred to as “laicité” in French) as a key foundation of the French Republic, guaranteeing equality for all citizens. This is enshrined in the removal of barriers of difference, including that of ethnic origin or race.

Nevertheless, a high number of folks of color residing in France feel that they are more likely to become victims of police violence, compared to their white counterparts. A 2017 study by Rights Defenders, an independent human rights organization in France, found that young people of black or Arab descent were 20 times more likely to be stopped by police for questioning, compared to their peers.

Thus, the eruption of anger and violence this time was not only about Nahel’s death, but also the prevalence of such incidents in French society – even while French law prohibits the collection of data based on ethnicity, as this would imply discrimination.

Paris-based political analysts Eddy Fougier and Gerd-Rainer Horn surmised that when protests broke out elsewhere, the sentiment that emerged was perhaps an ambient, reflexive skepticism or dislike of authority. Why the French people enjoy protesting is unclear, but according to Fougier, it is part of a national “culture of conflict” that can be traced back to the French Revolution.

“We almost want to repeat the French Revolution over and over again,” he theorized.

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