All slots for Rugby World Cup 2011 now decided

Romania defeated Uruguay 39-12 in a match played in Bucharest last night to become the last of the twenty teams to qualify for a position in one of the four pools in next year’s Rugby World Cup, to be played in New Zealand in September.

Romania will join Georgia in Pool B. For either of them to make it out of the pool into the elimination rounds they will need to defeat the other and two of Argentina, England and Scotland, a formidable task, but both these teams are worth watching and their match against each other, to be played at Palmerston North on 28 September, should be a good one.

The final composition of the pools is:

Pool A

New Zealand, France, Tonga, Canada, Japan

Pool B

Argentina, England, Scotland, Georgia, Romania

Pool C

Australia, Ireland, Italy, Russia, USA

Pool D

South Africa, Wales, Fiji, Samoa, Namibia

It will take a significant upset for any of the first two in the four pools to fail to make it into the elimination rounds; the best prospect of causing such an upset would have to be Scotland.

There will be many great games in the pool rounds: France-New Zealand will be a cracker, Australia-Ireland is always a tough slog, and games like Fiji-Samoa among the lesser lights are always entertaining.

After that the fun will really start – it’s sudden death, and four years before there is another chance to hold up the Webb-Ellis Cup.

Welcome back, Julian Huxley

It was good to see Julian Huxley return to playing for the ACT Brumbies last night in their match against the Waikato Chiefs. Huxley, 30, is a very attractive player who was diagnosed with a brain tumour in March 2008 and has been through all of the surgical and other rigours that inevitably follow.

While awaiting medical clearance from the Australian Rugby Union to resume playing, Huxley has been the Brumbies’ kicking coach and has been training regularly with the senior squad in the gym and in the field. The talk was, however, that it would be some time before he returned to match appearances.

That all changed when he was selected for the reserves bench for last night’s game, which meant that he had a legitimate expectation of being called upon for the last 15-20 minutes of the game. That all changed again when winger Francis Fainifo sustained a leg injury 10 minutes into the match. Full back Adam Ashley-Cooper was moved to his slot, and Huxley came on to play a full 70 minutes as full back against the determined onslaught of the Chiefs. He gave it everything he had, to such effect that one of the TV commentators remarked that he was a candidate for man of the match.

Good to see him back.

Bledisloe Cup start for James O’Connor

So James O’Connor is to be in the run-on Wallabies side for Saturday night’s Bledisloe Cup Test, the first start of his test career.

This is well deserved recognition for a brilliant young player, who certainly distinguished himself in the last match against the Springboks.

But I would hate to think of any nineteen-year-old of mine being all that stood between Ma’a Nonu and the tryline.