The Rugby World Cup is heading in the direction of the knockout levels, with the ultimate spherical of pool matches set to get underway on Thursday when New Zealand tackle Uruguay in Pool A. England and Wales have already progressed to the quarter-finals, with Eire and Scotland additionally vying to hitch them.
England have stormed to the highest of Pool D after successful all three of their pool matches forward of their ultimate conflict with Samoa on Saturday. Japan and Argentina are stage pegging behind England and can go head-to-head on Sunday in a winner-takes-all contest.
Wales have been in formidable type in the course of the Rugby World Cup and have matched England’s file of three wins. Warren Gatland’s group thrashed Australia of their final match, and the two-time champions can be eradicated on Sunday if Fiji pick-up not less than a bonus level in opposition to Portugal.
However essentially the most attractive conflict of the spherical will come on Saturday evening in Pool B when Eire face Scotland on the Stade de France. Eire are presently second in Pool B behind South Africa, with Scotland in third. However, extremely, Eire and Scotland might nonetheless each qualify if Gregor Townsend’s facet win the match by 21 factors and each side rating a attempt bonus level. And the unlikely state of affairs has led to questions from journalists about potential match fixing.
“I don’t know what to say about that,” mentioned Eire assistant coach Mike Catt forward of the sport when the topic was raised in his press convention. “That stuff is simply white noise within the background. No, we’re not going to go in cahoots with Scotland.”
And Scotland assistant coach Peter Horne advised reporters: “It’s not one thing we’ve got paid an excessive amount of consideration to. Everybody understands the job we’ve bought to do, the magnitude of it.”
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