IT’S unusual to have already travelled the length of a country when the group phase of a tournament is still only at the halfway stage, but that’s what a lot of the participants and camp followers at this Rugby World Cup have done. Scotland sat out the first weekend of the tournament, held in Brighton, and so began their stay in Gloucester, but some of us have journeyed from the south coast of England to our current location in Newcastle.

In the process, we’ve experienced a number of venues, seen a good few matches, met hundreds of supporters and scores of volunteers. And the experience - so far at least - has been overwhelmingly positive.

In fact, virtually all of the negativity came on the opening night, when England trundled to an unconvincing win over Fiji at Twickenham. It was a match that lasted closer to two hours than rugby’s traditional 80 minutes, thanks largely to a referee who felt obliged to ask the Television Match Official to rule on far too many incidents.

At its conclusion, social media was awash with disillusioned comments from many television viewers, committed rugby followers among them, declaring that they were unlikely to watch the rest of the tournament, so tedious had that particular game become. That it had all been spoiled. That it was as good as over before it started.

We always rush to judgement, of course, making hasty conclusions on the basis of little or no evidence. But the signs were bad. Certainly, if every match were to be officiated in the same nitpicking, uncertain manner, it looked like the eighth World Cup would be remembered largely for bad things.

Then came Brighton. It helped that the weekend was sunny, and that the city, pretty laidback at the best of times, was still in party mode. Weather and atmosphere always play a big part in the public mood, and Brighton delivered on both fronts.

In addition, as you will no doubt recall, that first Saturday of the competition, September 19, was International Talk Like A Pirate Day. What is more, Brighton, being Brighton, had organised a costume parade for the afternoon, to culminate in a rally in the middle of town just as the crowd made its way back from the Amex Stadium.

Which is why, as we got a bite to eat before heading for the ground, we were able to witness a range of strangely-garbed beings, far from all of whom were going to the rugby. The best by far was the sturdy gentleman in full pirate costume who, perhaps with the design of taking a dip in the sea at some stage of proceedings, had constructed a miniature wooden galleon that he was wearing round his middle. It can’t have been too heavy, because he was strolling down St James’ Street quite the thing, but it was an unusual sight all the same.

And of course the rugby that day was quite good, to say the least. Japan beat the Springboks with an exceptional performance, and we forgot all about the doom-mongering of the night before. The Rugby World Cup had gone from the ridiculous to the sublime, and the TMO couldn’t stop us from having a good time.

Up in the West Country, Scotland’s base for the first week, they talk like pirates every day, if only because the stereotypical pirate accent is based on the Bristolian accent. Gloucester, a bit inland, is a rugby stronghold, so would have welcomed the Scots and the Japanese squads in any case, but that result against South Africa certainly heightened the locals’ enthusiasm for the match between those two nations. Japan coach Eddie Jones played his part, too, by insisting that his team, despite the four-day turnaround, would prove themselves to be fitter than Scotland in the latter stages of the game. If they were in touch at half-time, Jones predicted, his men would win.

Well, they were in touch - just 12-7 down at the break, and 12-10 a few minutes into the second half - but then Scotland scored 33 points to show how shallow the Japan coach’s words were. To be fair to Jones, he probably thought he had to do everything possible to try to lift a team who were utterly drained, mentally and physically, by their big win over the two-time former world champions.

From Kingsholm we moved on to Elland Road in Leeds, a far bigger ground with a grander past. While chatting to a volunteer there last Friday, I mentioned that a few of us were off to watch South Africa take on Samoa the following day, in Birmingham.

“Sorry,” she said, offering a sad look and a condoling pat on the arm as if I’d just told her that the family cat had died. It was a light-hearted reminder that England is a patchwork quilt comprising rival regions, and that wherever you are - with the possible exception of a slice of the West Midlands - no-one thinks much of Birmingham.

But despite those regional differences, and the distinct characters of the venues used, there has been an important uniformity about the World Cup so far - first-night nerves excepted, it has been uniformly excellent. Here’s to more of the same over the coming month.