No quarter given: World Cup comes to life as the knockout stage begins

A storm blew into the sleepy little city of Oita on Friday morning. It brought thunder, lightning and tens of thousands of rugby fans from England, Australia, France and Wales. They found each other under the awnings around the central station, where they sang songs about Delilah and Matilda and all the unseemly things that went on in a Chicago department store, while the locals scurried by and sheltered inside. The World Cup has been running for a month already, but really, it is only just getting started. This weekend the eight best teams in the world square off and they all have a shot at winning to reach the semi-finals.

The tens of thousands will be joined by tens of millions at kick-off. Half of Japan watched their team play Scotland on TV last Sunday, twice as many as watched their opening match against Russia. So whatever happens when they play South Africa in Tokyo on Sunday evening, the landscape of the game has changed in the past four weeks. The horizon is broader now. There are reams of saccharine quotes we could use, from one of those spurious online collections of inspirational sayings, all about how the point of travel is to learn about yourself as much as it is to visit somewhere else.

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Suffice to say rugby is discovering some good things about itself on this particular trip, that it can expand beyond its old heartlands and win over millions of new viewers. The Japanese even have a phrase for it: niwaka fans. Newcomers, bandwagon jumpers. Well hop on. And do not worry, the lyrics come easier than the laws, and are twice as much fun when you have learned them.

It helps that Japan are winning. But it is true, too, that there is something there, at the heart of the game, that has drawn this audience to it. The superhuman speed, skill and ferocity, yes, but also its values too. Little things, such as the way the players have made a point of bowing to the crowd, and big ones, such as the footage of the Canadian team going out in the streets to help shovel up muck when the biggest game of their World Cup, against Namibia, had been cancelled because of Typhoon Hagibis. That stuff matters in a country where manners do too.

They are values that some of the people running the game maybe need to be reminded of themselves. The only time they seem to pay them any mind is when they are reckoning what they can sell them for. There was a sighting of rugby’s old, narrow-minded parochialism in the petty squabble that blew up last weekend when the men in button-down shirts were busy bickering about which union had stitched up who while matches were being cancelled because the host country was dealing with the worst typhoon since the 1950s. If this World Cup has given us a glimpse of what the game could be, it has shown us, too, some of what is holding it back.

You can also see that in the way some of the leading countries are all too happy to take from the Pacific Islands without giving anything worthwhile in return. And the way they, and the other emerging nations, struggle to get the fixtures they need against those top teams. And you have to guess that it is right there in the boardrooms where the English clubs and European countries are doing deals with CVC Capital, a vampire squid of a company who were accused of “raping the sport” after they got involved with F1. So yes, it is a good moment for rugby to show us its heart and soul.

It starts on Saturday, when England play Australia. Eddie Jones compared the World Cup to a game of poker. Well, let’s see what he has got in his hand. He has spent four years getting the team ready for this, winnowing the best of English rugby, nasty, brutish and fast, from the worst, dull, lumpen and unimaginative. We are about to find out if it worked. Australia are a dangerous team to run into. Their coach, Michael Cheika, has been keeping his cards close to his chest. But he, and a couple of Australia’s best-ever players – Will Genia and David Pocock – know this could be the last game they play. They do not need another reason to want to beat England, but they have a few right there.

Then in Tokyo, it is Ireland against the All Blacks, which would once have been a mismatch. Ireland had not beaten New Zealand in more than a hundred years of trying, now they have done it twice in three matches, which is one reason why no one really knows whether this is another good New Zealand team or whether it could become a great one. And if it seems as if Ireland have taken a step backwards since their famous victory against the All Blacks in Dublin, they still have Johnny Sexton, the world player of the year and a man who is not fooling around. He has played 147 minutes out of 320 in this World Cup, and Ireland are 78-8 up with him, 19-43 without.

Wales play France on Sunday. Wales are being stretched pretty thin, but they have a coach, Warren Gatland and, a captain, Alun Wyn Jones, who know how to win. They have learned it across three Lions tours together, not to mention all those Six Nations’ grand slams. They have been impressively self-possessed, even though a scandal cost them their attack coach. They know exactly what they are about, whereas the French are still figuring it out. But they have a brilliantly bright bunch of young players, and finally have a coach, Fabien Galthié, who seems to have got them playing in their own inimitable way, even if he is still officially Jacques Brunel’s assistant.

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Then to cap it all off, Japan v South Africa, a rematch of the startling game at Brighton in 2015, when the rugby world first started to turn upside down. This South Africa team, shaped by Rassie Erasmus, steered by Siya Kolisi, sparked by Cheslin Kolbe, is better than the one who lost there. But Japan have improved exponentially too and, after the way they played in a 30-minute stretch against Scotland when they seemed untouchable, no one is sure what they may be capable of. Least of all the 60 million new fans, who know only that their team has won four Tests in a row.

It is all unknown, like so much else about where the game is heading. But there is some hope, at least, that the game is going to show the best of itself, and that there are better things ahead.