GOOD DAY
For Giorgi Chkhaidze, the 34-year-old lock who has played in all four World Cups for which Georgia have qualified is thrilled to have been called into their squad for tomorrow’s meeting with New Zealand.
"I have played four World Cups and it's a big honour for me to play the reigning world champions,” he said.
“The only thing I can compare it to is when I played England. When England became the champions it was the first time I had this feeling of playing against a great team.”
Back then, however, he only knew afterwards that he and his team-mates had, at their first World Cup in 2003, confronted the team that would become world champions. This time Georgia know exactly what they are up against as the All Blacks continue their title defence in the Millennium Stadium.
BAD DAY
For ticket touts… or at least that’s the theory. World Cup organisers are reported to be targeting opportunists who are selling their tickets on unofficial secondary sites, writing to more than 600 people suspected of doing so and advising them to use official resale outlets instead for any such transaction.
Does anyone really think that at what has been the commercially successful World Cup so far they are really going to prevent tickets being sold illegally for umpteen times their face value either online or by touts who brazenly offer to buy or sell at every major sporting occasion?
The only thing that could conceivably cut down on the practice for the big games at this tournament would be if the unimaginable was to happen and, for the first time in World Cup history, no host nation was to make it to the quarter-finals… Oh, em, wait a minute, no, surely that cannot be part of the clamp-down strategy?
WHAT’S ON TODAY?
The action returns with two cracking matches as patched up Wales take on a Fiji side that knows this is their last chance of making a significant impact at this World Cup and has always targeted this match as its best chance of doing so, while France face the one team against whom they need to make sure they have sophisticated lineout codes knowing that Canada, too, believe they can cause an upset.
There is also the fascination of the line-ups being named for what could prove a decisive Pool A encounter for either Australia or hosts England.
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