Who's hot…and who's not!

It's time for our weekly wrap up of who has been setting the benchmarks and who needs to be dropped to bench!

As we hurtle towards the business end of the World Cup, it's time for our weekly wrap up of who has been setting the benchmarks and who needs to be dropped to bench!

Can't touch this…

Morné Steyn
With two tries, fourteen conversions and five penalties to his name so far, South Africa's pivot is the tournament's top points scorer with 53. It has been an impressive turnaround from the Bulls marksman after many were for calling for him to be dropped a few months ago. While some kickers have struggled with the new ball and its supposedly smaller 'sweet spot', Steyn just keeps on sending 'em down the middle.

Chris Ashton
Six tries down, just two to go to break even with Messrs Lomu and Habana for the all-time try-scorer's record at a single tournament. The way France have been defending it wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest that we could see a 'Ash Splash' or two this weekend. Israel Dagg, Adam Ashley-Cooper and Vincent Clerc have scored five each so England's winger isn't alone in chasing the record.

Martin Castrogiovanni
After the USA scrum was monstered last Tuesday, the Irish were given a rough ride…well, for 34 minutes that is. If ever you needed proof of Castro's importance to the Azzurri cause, the implosion of the Italian set piece in his absence on Sunday was a case in point. The big guy with the big mouth is good for laugh too, as shown by his take on being handed the Italy captaincy when Sergio Parisse left the field against Russia: “For a moment I thought I must have been the most stupid captain in the history of Italy, but then I remembered that Fabio Ongaro had also been captain and I told myself that there had been at least one worse than me.”

Tonga
Tonga 19 France 14. Biggest upset in World Cup history. Enough said.

Samoa
Tonga might have come good against the French but, like Fiji, they were otherwise disappointing. Samoa, however, confirmed their status as the strongest of the Island nations by quite a margin. They played some great rugby and one can't help wonder what would have happened had they not been grouped in the 'Pool of Death.' Unfortunately their World Cup is likely to be remembered more for other reasons, which we'll get to in a moment.

Vasily Artemyev's accent
Yes, we truly are living in a global village. Close your eyes when Russia's wing/full-back is talking and you'd swear you were standing outside Trinity College in downtown Dublin. Next stop Northampton for the speedster from Zelenograd. After a bit of time hanging round with a certain wing mentioned earlier, we're bound to hear more from Mother Russia's first export to the Premiership.

When you're just not cool, you're ice cold

L'attitude du XV de France
It's not often we agree with Marc Lièvremont, but he was right when he said his team didn't get off the bus. With the exception of Thierry Dusautoir, Vincent Clerc and Maxime Medard they certainly didn't do the bleu jersey proud. In fact, it looked like some of them had been sipping pinot noir during the ride to the stadium. We'd love to see some stats comparing the combined salaries of the teams on display in Wellington. Franchement les gars, vous étiez minables. On s'attendait à mieux.

Dodgy tactics
Now we all agree that rugby is a physical game where aggression – shall we say controlled aggression – is vital to getting the better of the opposition. Like the great man once said, “it's not Tiddlywinks.” But there is fine line between playing hard and trying to get your opponent into trouble by provoking him with unsportsmanlike conduct. A lot of people got the distinct impression that Italy and Samoa went out with the intention of using just those kinds of underhanded tactics. (No one is saying the Springboks have a saintly track record, but for once they were the ones called upon to keep their cool). The net result of it all? A red card for a guy in dark blue and a fifteen-week ban for a guy in light blue. There might be moral to this story….

Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu's potty mouth
And so the Twitter rants continue. Fuimaono-Sapolu had some just points about schedules and perhaps – at a stretch – about the nationality of the referee in Samao's last game. But the foul-mouthed nature of his outbursts are getting more attention than the arguments he is trying to make. To call Nigel Owens a racist was hitting below the belt. To suggest that match officials are nothing more than a biased puppets in some Machiavellian game played by the IRB was misguided. To use the word 'holocaust' discredited what could have been a valid argument. Failing to turn up at his misconduct hearing and thus leaving Samoan officials – who tried desperately to get hold of him – to face the music alone was just not professional. As we've mentioned in the past, for all his good intentions he might be doing Samoan rugby more harm than good. He's a well-educated guy, he could do better.

Compiled by Ross Hastie