Joy to see the hosts burst out of bubble

"Fabien Galthie's remarkable glasses feature prominently on news bulletins nearly every day"

- JAMES HARRINGTON

THE Rugby World Cup party kicked off in France on Friday. Things have been simmering along with anticipation here for some time, as you'd expect, and now you can't get away from the sporting jamboree here in France, even if you wanted to.

Fabien Galthie's remarkable glasses feature prominently on news bulletins pretty much every day. Player fitness as a discussion topic has broken confinement and is up for debate on even usually dour and sensible channels and programmes far beyond the likes of L'Equipe TV, or Canal Plus's rugby shows.

Free-to-air broadcasters TF1, France Televisions and M6, which are sharing coverage of the tournament in France, are going big on the action. Every ad break includes at least one World Cup-related sales pitch, usually more. 

The sports sections of the French papers, too, are filled with news and injury scares and controversies from various camps, as well as opinion pieces from the great, the good and the one-eyed on how France will inevitably win, next to a feature in which one of South Africa, Ireland, or New Zealand are most likely to lift the trophy on October 28.

To see the game break out of its Midi Olympique bubble as spectacularly as this - as it absolutely should in a country hosting the World Cup - will always be a joy.

Even in France, a country that is sometimes hailed among fans as a rugby utopia because of the interest in the game from grassroots to elite levels, and the near-mythical importance of the local club in certain areas of the country, rugby still usually loses out to football on the news bulletins.