Letter from Bordeaux:All went to form, of a sort, save for the opening game, and it is Argentina's win over France on opening night that continues to cause most ripples. One of the net consequences is that Argentina are now best placed to win pool D, which raises the possibility of no European country in the semi-finals in a tournament held entirely on European soil if not (the IRB being the money-obsessed ruling body they are) entirely on French soil.
Everywhere you go, from French supporters to taxi drivers and their media, the home country is still reeling. One suspects the IRB and tournament organisers are a tad concerned as well. The France-Ireland game on September 21st in Stade de France is fast shaping up to be a dog-eat-dog shot at redemption.
At least Ireland will have a second crack, at Argentina nine days later, or will they? Amid all the doom and gloom within the host country, it's worth putting their current standing in context.
Yes, they'll go into that game against Ireland with a nation's fears and hopes again weighing heavily on their shoulders; another defeat and they are out.
Against that, victory and they are still very much alive, in part because, after events in Bordeaux on Sunday night, they will probably build up a better points difference than Ireland. It's also worth noting that were they to beat Ireland with a bonus point, and deny Ireland one, they would be virtually assured of a place in the quarter-finals.
Furthermore, Ireland might have to not only beat Argentina but do so by more than seven points to deny Los Pumas a bonus point as well. An Irish win though, of any hue, could yet see France win the group.
Even being rerouted to Cardiff to face the mighty All Blacks in the quarter-finals mightn't signal the end of France's involvement. Recall the 1999 tournament, and France's utterly prosaic slumber through a home pool featuring a lucky win over Fiji before they sprang to life in the second half of their semi-final to beat New Zealand in Twickenham.
(Even last year's footballers struggled through their group and then Zizou and co sprang to life against Spain, Brazil and Portugal.)
Come the Irish game, they will be fighting to avoid a stigma that would stick with them for the rest of their lives, never mind careers. With backs to the wall, in the pits of despair, the French sports psyche can be at its most dangerous.
It will probably do them no harm to escape from their Marcoussis (Marcatraz) base for a few days to Toulouse to play in front of a proper rugby crowd this Sunday, all the more so with a completely redesigned team featuring the recalled local heroes Clement Poitrenaud, Vincent Clerc, Frederic Michalak, Jean-Baptiste Ellisalde, Thierry Dusautoir, Yannick Nyanga and Jean-Baptiste Poux.
The Irish squad too have been a little cocooned on the outskirts of Bordeaux, and yesterday afforded them their first opportunity to actually see the sights of this lovely city. There have been no school or underage club visits, and - unlike the 8,000 invited to an Australian session in Lyon - no open sessions.
The first public appearance for squad and management outside Sunday's match will be a corporate lunch in front of 250 guests in the Bordeaux Chambers of Commerce, arranged in tandem with the IRFU. Aside from union dignitaries, entrepreneurs from the French and Irish business worlds will reportedly attend.
These are the circles the IRFU move in. This is why their profoundly flawed decision to prematurely extend Eddie O'Sullivan's contract by a further four years prior to the acid test of the World Cup made sense to them. The Union's coffers were bursting, largely thanks to the GAA opening Croke Park, and it made sense to have a steady hand on the tiller. It was not, in reality, a rugby decision at all, though you can hardly blame O'Sullivan for the union's extraordinary largesse.
Given no-one in the union is ever seemingly accountable (not even to their fellow executive members), the coach is now impregnable and the first-choice team seems to be cast in stone, you wonder what are the consequences of failure.
Just keep those lunches rolling and keep selling those replica jerseys.
There are profound flaws in the team's performances. Perhaps in part because the team is cast in stone, the intensity and aggression in the collisions - which now rule the roost in modern-day rugby - have again dropped off. As in the Italian warm-up, one cannot recall one big hit by an Irish player against Namibia.
They are not clearing out or counter-rucking like they did in the Six Nations or in that misleading autumnal campaign of almost a year ago, and they are not offloading or using their footwork to take the tackle and facilitate an offload. Nor are their running angles and support play anything like the England and Italian games of last spring.
Many of the problems now look like they'd need a month and several games to fix, although there is assuredly at least one big performance in this team at this World Cup.
