Paris - South Africa coach Jake White defied the bookmakers by proclaiming England the Rugby World Cup final favourite even though the defending champion lost Josh Lewsey with a hamstring injury.

White argued Monday that the fact England still had many of the stars of its 2003 triumph in Australia outweighed recent head-to-head form which makes the Springboks the 1/3 favourite.

With Lewsey sidelined, however, South Africa should become an even stronger bet going into Saturday’s final, especially having beaten England the last four times including a 36-0 thrashing here a month ago.

Two days after scoring the only try of the semifinal against host France, Lewsey heard the news he was dreading.

“To miss out on the final is personally devastating,” he said on Monday. “But there’s more important factors than that. All I care about is that England win - I don’t care how.”

The only English player to score a try in its last two games, Lewsey limped off with a hamstring strain at halftime of his teams’ 14-9 semifinal victory.

Now England has to decide whether to replace him in the squad or reshuffle a settled backline. Coach Brian Ashton settled on veteran Mike Catt as his solution to earlier injuries to centres Andy Farrell and Olly Barkley but now has a problem on the wing.

The last two games of the sixth World Cup will be two rematches.

In Friday’s bronze medal game, France hopes to restore some national pride by beating Argentina, the side that beat Les Tricolores 17-12 in the opening match.

The following day, South Africa and England chase their second World Cup titles when they meet at the Stade de France five weeks after the Springboks’ three-try thumping of England in group play.

While England came up with the first hard team news of what will be a week of mind games, Springbok coach White said that shutout meant nothing in terms of Saturday’s meeting. He added that the English were the favourites because they had 13 players from the title-winning squad of 2003.

“It’s not a case of manufacturing underdog status,” he said. “England must be favourites because this group of players won them the Rugby World Cup final.

“You go through Wilkinson and Robinson and Catt and Dallaglio, Kay, Vickery, Corry - the reality is they’ve been there, they’ve done it, they’ve won the World Cup away from home in Australia.

“We can’t be complacent at all. Whatever happened in the pool games is irrelevant. After the pool game a lot of people didn’t even think England would be in the quarterfinals.”

Before Jonny Wilkinson returned to the England lineup for his first World Cup appearance since the 2003 final, England was a 66-1 shot to hold on to its title. Although he is not even close to his kicking best, he has helped England beat Samoa, Tonga, Australia and France on the way to the final and now his team is 9-4 with the bookies.

While Saturday’s final is neatly set up as Tri-Nations vs. Six Nations, the third place game doesn’t have the same significance.

Argentina has been the team of the championship in terms of going further than ever before and impressing outsiders not only with its formidable pack and standout defence but improved ball-handling in the backline.

While France and England go back to being Six Nations foes next year and South Africa takes on Australia and New Zealand in the next series of Tri-Nations matches, there is nowhere for the Pumas to go.

Most of them play in Europe so it would be logical for them to join the Six Nations. Then there are the logistical problems of the six travelling to South America while the same would apply if the Pumas were to join the Tri-Nations.

“If they really want Argentina to improve on the world stage they need to give Argentina some base to improve,” said inside centre Felipe Contepomi, who has kicked the most penalties of this World Cup, 17.

“We play half the games of the Six Nations or Tri-Nations teams. And a lot of the games we play are friendlies so the players are changing a lot.” -

SourceL: iol.co.za

By Robert Millward

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 10:31 pm and is filed under Bokke, World Cup News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.