I was sat in the Gatekeeper pub in Cardiff with friends on Saturday, mulling over the Dragons’ latest defeat, little knowing the disaster about to happen to Newport RFC back home. I supped my pint and wondered, until my housemate let me know by text, what was going on in the Tonga v Samoa game; because the pub, located not a hundred yards from the Millennium Stadium, was showing the Women’s World Cup between England and the USA!

I was told later, with no little satisfaction, that the narrow 30-25 victory by the Springboks was one of the best games of the tournament. And my pub incident (we were eventually shown the England - Samoa game, thankfully) was further proof of what a strange bunch the Welsh are when it comes to our ‘national’ sport. Sure, we have a fantastic history and you’ll see the shirts when the going’s good, but how passionate are we really? Wales have been given two home games in this World cup and the first was always guaranteed to get over 70,000, but the stadium was only just over half-full against Japan, a shame because the game turned out to be thoroughly entertaining from both sides. Barely twenty thousand came to see the Fiji - Canada game; you can say what you like about booking fees and ticket prices, but I would wager the ticket price was similar for that game as today’s draw between Canada and Japan, which got forty thousand rugby fans visiting, mostly Frenchmen happy to see a World Event on their doorstep.

Anyway, back to the rugby itself. Wales were again guilty of some careless play against Japan: there is a difference between throwing a ball around because you know someone will be there to catch it and throwing a ball around hoping someone in your team gets to it before the opposition. Wales are still prone to playing too much of the latter although when we are good, we look great. Fiji will punish our mistakes more than Canada or Japan were able and it will be interesting to see what team Jenkins picks tomorrow. My thoughts on the team and the weekend’s games will appear later in the week!