From the Touchline

A lighter look at what is happening at Rugby World Cup 2011.

The numbers

5 - the number of times England wing Chris Ashton went on the 134m Nevis bungy jump near Queenstown last Monday. 

11 - the number of different All Blacks who scored tries in Friday's triumph over Japan. Only two Rugby World Cup matches have featured more different try scorers from the same side - 13 by New Zealand against Portugal in 2007 and 12 by Australia against Namibia in 2003.

6 -  the number of different starting backs scoring a try for the All Blacks, equalling a RWC record. From the starting backline, only Cory Jane failed to cross, although his replacement - Sonny Bill Williams - scored twice.

15 - Japan's Hirotoki Onozawa became the 15th player in World Cup history to score at least one try in three different World Cups. Onozawa also crossed once in 2003 and 2007. 

He said it

“We’re not the greatest rugby team in the world, but we are the best at medicine and in particular sports medicine."

- USA medical co-ordinator Michael Keating on the quality of the USA team medical staff.

There are stars, and there are legends

A trip to an Auckland bar by Wallaby pair Digby Ioane and Saia Faingaa attracted the usual mob of fans keen for a photo, but neither could claim to be the most accomplished player in the venue that night.

At the adjacent table in Britomart Country Club sat Anna Richards, veteran fly half with the Black Ferns, the New Zealand women’s team. Richards, who has won four World Cups, went unnoticed until recognised by a visiting Australian fan.

Caroline Edwards, who plays for the women’s XV at Power House, a club in Melbourne, Australia, said: “I support Australia, but Anna - she’s an absolute legend.”

Entente cordiale

The France national XV might be the All Blacks’ bête noire when it comes to World Cups, but Les Tricolores’ fans will get the warmest of welcomes at Auckland's Ardmore Marist Rugby and Sports Club this weekend.

The club, located in Papakura, have a President’s XV fixture against a group of visiting supporters from Marseille on Saturday September 24, arranged through member Guy Barton’s business links with France.

The match, at Bruce Pulman Park, Walters Road, kicks off at 10.30am, while a junior tournament will run from 9am. The event will, of course, feature la troisième mi-temps (the third half), with a traditional Maori hangi and a French theme to the liquid refreshments.

All visitors are welcome, and for extra information email club registrar Kelly Flavell on admin@ardmoremarist.co.nz - and if that surname sounds familiar, it’s because she’s related by marriage to former All Black Troy Flavell. 

Steep learning curve

Dunedinite Dave Kernahan is a sporting legend who is not a household name.

But he has managed to give New Zealand rugby hero Jonah Lomu a run for his money and seen off French forward Sébastien Chabal.

Kernahan holds the record for the most ascents and descents of the world’s steepest street, Baldwin Street, in suburban Dunedin. This has a gut-busting gradient of 1:5.

He once made Lomu (“one of the nicest guys I have ever met”) work to beat him in the climb and two years ago took on and humbled Chabal.

Kernahan, 60, who had made a staggering 180,000 journeys up until 2008 but has since lost count, will compete in the annual Gutbuster event on Baldwin Street on Sunday where about 1,000 contestants have to do the return journey twice to register a time.

Another annual event on Baldwin Street is rolling hundreds of Jaffas (a New Zealand round sweet, orange in colour) down the hill, with each sponsored by a contestant. At the top it looks like an orange river, but they have a habit of running off course.

The Jaffa that rolls the farthest is the winner.

Halfway up the hill, contestants can wave to Sandy McNicol, the 1972 All Black, who owns a bed & breakfast establishment.

RWC 2011 media have been given an extra incentive to better Kernahan’s time in the hope of winning a $100 bar tab.

On thin ice?

USA Eagles’ medical co-ordinator and former ice hockey physio, Mike Keating, insists that rugby and ice hockey are actually "very similar sports".

"I’m sure the analogy has never been made but one of the reasons I fell in love with rugby is that it’s very similar to ice hockey," he said.

"You’ve got big guys, the players are very blue-collar, hardworking individuals. You can’t exist on one skill alone, and you have to play offence and defence. You have to be able to take a hit and give a hit.

"They’re actually very similar sports. The field position and ice position are both very important, and one break in the line and you’re done. It’s a very similar sport, although it looks very different.

“If he could skate, a rugby player would be a wonderful hockey player.”

Unbending Blossoms

On the title page of Saturday's RWC daily video on this website, the Japanese players are seen following custom and bowing to the Waikato Stadium crowd before the match against the All Blacks. Well, at least some of them.

Numbers 5, 10, 13 and 16 remain upright. Are they the foreign members of the team? Have they got their timing out of kilter? Are they saving their hamstrings? Or maybe they just couldn't be bothered.

It doesn't matter. The crowd look happy enough anyway.

Scotching a myth

Events such as a World Cup can bring out the best and the worst in people as the different nationalities mingle in an unusually intimate proximity.

It can also dispel (or prove) stereotypes, such as the one about Scots being "careful" with their money.

Yesterday in Christchurch Scottish Rugby Union President Ian "Mighty Mouse"  McLauchlan handed over a cheque for $NZ 85,000 for the earthquake relief fund and, in a pointed reference to the reputation of the Scots, said: "You'll realise with this cheque that all Scots are not mean bastards."

A generous gesture that was greatly appreciated, as was his summary of rugby in New Zealand.

"Brutality on the field and hospitality off it, but that's the way it should be."

Moody's argy bargy

Whoever had the seat next to England captain Lewis Moody against Argentina last week will be glad that the flanker is fit to start against Georgia at Otago Stadium in Dunedin on Sunday.

Moody came close to a place in the squad against the Pumas but hadn’t quite recovered from an injury to his right knee.

And manager Martin Johnson gave him the merest taste of the action, before hauling him back to fidget in the crowd.

“Against Argentina I got to take part in the warm-up and it was probably the most annoying period of my life,” Moody said on Saturday.

“Getting heated up for 20 minutes and ready to go, and then go and sit in the stands.

"I didn't really know what to do with myself."