Community service announcement

Ah well. As feared, Souths got touched up like an Opus Dei choirboy, but at least the Broncs got molested even worse. Best of luck to the Sea Biggles hereafter; you may be silvertail scum from the insular peninsula but at least you and Parra weren't Super League turncoat fucks like the rest of the finals survivors.

As a service to our loyal World of Bollocks readers we present the following Mad Monday-related community announcement. For your own personal safety, here are a list of licenced premises to avoid on or about the week commencing the evening of Sunday September 9, on account of them being full of drunk footballers whose seasons have ended a bit earlier than expected:
SA residents: The Old Lion Hotel, North Adelaide
Qld residents: Anywhere within a ten mile radius of Red Hill
NSW residents: South Sydney Leagues Club, the Clovelly Hotel, the Coogee Bay Hotel, whatever pretentious wanker bar the Swannies hang out in, and that pub in Coffs which Their Russ had some strife with

For the week commencing the evening of September 16 we expect to update this list with further venues to avoid in south Auckland, the Canterbury-Bankstown area and Melbourne's inner eastern suburbs, particularly Hawthorn and Collingwood. (Yup, we're predicting more shot birds from the second round of AFL eliminations.)

Technically we can't call this a preview since the fucker's already started, but anyway
That puffing sound you may be able to hear in the background is the collective pride of New Zealand inflating itself to physiologically unsustainable proportions, which can only mean one thing - the All Blacks haven't choked yet. It's Rugby World Cup time again and that means another one of our potentially actionable previews (now with 95% less diligent research!)

The tournament
The Rugby World Cup is played each four years between whichever countries can be arsed sending a team. This is usually in direct proportion to the number of private schools per head in the leafier, more affluent, more heavily Volvo-infested suburbs of the larger cities. Though billing itself as a genuine World Cup, the RWC is at best the third most important of the major World Cup tournaments behind those of football and cricket. The RWC's status as the 'Third World Cup' is further emphasized by the third world nations which are permitted to compete, including Namibia, Romania, Tonga, Georgia and New Zealand.

RWC2007 is being held in France, in pretty much the same bunch of stadia which hosted the football World Cup in 1998, except that the IRB has been obliged to rope in Edinburgh and Cardiff as additional venues as the French can't be arsed rescheduling national league football games at the other grounds. As with everything, when the French can't be arsed doing something, they do it with panache. Actually they do it in exactly the same manner, but more haughtily, and often with random italics.

Pool A: England, South Africa, Samoa, USA, Tonga
South Africa: Contenders however harmed by their failure to resolve debilitating team selection issues which, in fairness, are entirely black and white. The white being coach Jake White, no relation of either of the White Stripes, who appears to spend his entire life sitting in press conferences in an astonishingly gay blazer.
England: Slow, ponderous and stupid.
Samoa: Currently the most in-form of the Pacific Islands teams. Gave both the Pool A bigs a scare at RWC2003. May do again this time out, but probably not consistently enough to outlast the English for the second finals berth behind the Yaapies.
USA: American.
Tonga: Tune in for the war dance then flip channels.

Pool B: Australia, Wales, Fiji, Canada, Japan
Australia: Can be charitably described as a fucking horrible excuse for a rugby side. However, will win the group based on their being noone else less incompetent then them. Game plan will revolve around the pick-and-drive, long kicking, and hoping like the Jesus fuck that Latham doesn't get crocked again. In the absence of Wendy Sailor, will rely heavily on Lotsa Tequilas to provide the all-important aimlessly-running-sideways factor, random spear-tackling of opponents, a large chest to bounce perfectly-catchable short balls off, and of course the after-match entertainment.
Wales: Oooooo. Rugby, shit weather and sheep, it's the New Zealand of the north. Pity they're crap. Like New Zealand, they peaked equidistant between World Cups, winning the Six Nations in 2005, and have done bugger all since. Home games at the Millennium will help, but they'll be staying there at home once the tournament gets serious.
Fiji: Would be really good if the tournament was seven-a-side, kava skolling, or 'see who can have the most military coups between world cups'. It ain't. Might scare the Welsh for a half or so.
Canada: About as much use as Candida, but given they've turned up to every RWC since day 1, equally persistent.
Japan: Toire wa doko desu ka? It's out there on the field in stripey red uniforms; not even All Black legend John Kirwan on antidepressants can coach this lot into not being absolutely shithouse. Soo desu ne. (And with that, our entire stock of Year 7 Japanese is extinguished.)

Pool C: New Zealand, Scotland, Italy, Romania, Portugal
New Zealand: In light of their national compulsion towards falling over hopelessly in the semis of any international sporting tournament, the All Blacks™ have employed Gilbert Enoka, not a Kenyan marathon runner but a pudgy Kiwi shrink, as their 'mental skills coach'. Judging by recent press comments from senior players, his approach to preventing the All Blacks™ from choking in the semi is to instruct them to stick their fingers in their ears and go LALALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING whenever anyone brings the issue up. Predicted result: will choke in the semi. In order to avoid being lynched at Auckland Airport, the entire team will agree to be bought wholesale by Ernesto Bertarelli, and will go on to win the 2011 Rugby World Cup for Switzerland.
Scotland: Their moth-eaten new uniforms, like everyone else in Canterbury jerseys, look a total haggis. Despite playing like men who wear skirts as their national dress, will probably end up with the spare quarter-final berth after the All Blacks™ have finished defiling the still-warm carcasses of their pool-stage competitors. Team sponsor, the Famous Grouse, is in fact not really that famous and not really very grouse either.
Italy: Italians take to rugby about as well as cappuccinos after midday, organised traffic and uncorruptible football referees. Unsurprisingly most of their team are either Argies of Italian extraction, adopted Southern Hemisphere types, or lost.
Romania: Who? How? And more to the point, why?
Portugal: Divers. The lot of 'em.

Pool D: France, Ireland, Argentina, Georgia, Namibia
France: Oh dear. Despite neanderthal flanker Seb Chabal's boast that France had 'thirty Zinedine Zidanes' in their squad (useful only if things deteriorate into a nutting competition, surely?) the weight of expectation on the hosts has become plain to see, with coach Laporte coming out with increasingly lunatic claims about southern hemisphere drug testing and rule breaking (something about needing to change the rules because the All Blacks™ understand them properly?) and then collapsing in a screaming pile of number deux when the Argies asked a few tricky questions in the tournament opener. It's their party, and they'll cry if they want to: you would cry too if you failed to make the knockout stage, which they probably will.
Ireland: Irish. Best ranked of the Home Nations, though overly dependent in attack on New Zealand's favourite spear-tacklee Brian O'Driscoll, which is a bit of a pity as he's crocked. Entire team probably drunk right now.
Argentina: Tournament dark horses, even before creme brulee-ing the French on matchday one; have been in excellent form on their recent travels, having beaten England, Ireland and Italy. Most of their squad play for French clubs.
Georgia: Most of their squad play for French clubs too but it's not going to help them. Neither will fielding fifteen blokes with widows' peaks, heavy five o'clock shadow at two in the afternoon, and names ending in 'adze'.
Namibia: In the last world cup, they were beaten by 142 to nil, by a second-string Wallabies team 'boasting' the likes of Sludge Rogers and Lotsa Tequilas, in Adelaide. It doesn't really get more embarrassing than that, folks.

Nostrildramas busts out tha mad skillz once more with feeling:
Pool results:
(A) Saffers first, Poms squeak second
(B) The Wobbilies then the Welsh, boyo
(C) The All Blacks™, then daylight, then the Scots
(D) Argentina first, France second after some truly charitable hometown refereeing in the Ireland game, probably from Steve Walsh

It's A Knockout: (that's the name of the game, allegedly)
QF1, Oct 6 Marseilles: Australia def England
QF2, Oct 6 Cardiff: New Zealand def France
QF3, Oct 7 Marseilles: South Africa def Wales
QF4, Oct 7 St-Denis: Argentina def Scotland

SF1, Oct 13 St-Denis: Australia somehow def New Zeahhh.. can't breathe... throat constricting...
SF2, Oct 14 St-Denis: Argentina def South Africa, just for the hell of it

Kiss-yer-sister game, Oct 19 Paris: neither NZ nor RSA turns up having entered the Witness Protection Program to avoid being lynched by own rabid fans

Final, Oct 20 St-Denis: Argentina def Australia, after controversial match-winning try from Argentine number 10 who ascribes clear goal-line knock-on (missed by referee) to 'the Hand of God'


You read it here first. (Obviously, because no other bastard would bother plagiarising this rubbish and printing it elsewhere.)

The Doctor is OUT like red and green stripes in September.
SO last month.