WARNING: Absolutely no NASCAR here, it's all about men without pads chasing an odd-shaped ball. Just putting it there as it's where most of my other posts have been. Normal NASCAR service will be resumed if there's something interesting going on in Martinsville.

There's something wonderful about the British pshyche, we can spend the best part of 4 years throwinf every insult in the book at our national sporting teams, yet they do well for 2 weeks and we suddenly forget everything.

That is exactly what's happening now, the flags have started to appear clipped to the top of car windows and flags have been seen draped across windows. It's the Rugby World Cup final, and somehow England are in it, for better or worse.

Unfortunately it's against South Africa, a good team in any light, but more importantly the team that beat the English 36-0 when they faced each other in the tournament's group stages. A game I felt I had to turn off to avoid depression - it went beyond train wreck bad to well...something worse to watch than a train wreck. I can only imagine the South African players rubbing their eyes with disbelief when they saw who they were playing to be the best team on the planet.

Yet despite this evidence in favour of the Springboks walking all over us again a lot has happened in the rugby world in the last few weeks. The two favourites - New Zealand and Australia both lost in the last 8 stage, to France and England respectively, games the southern hemisphere sides never should have lost on paper. As well as this the South Africans, while obviously making it through games have not been peerless, conceding 20 points to comparative minnows Fiji and 13 to Argentina in the semis. All of this says one thing. Anything can happen.

What is obvious is that the Springboks are the favourites, and the way that England have got through the past two rounds will not work against them. We cannot rely on Jonny 'minorly a one-trick pony' Wilkinson to give us three points every 10 minutes or so. That will simply not be enough. But at the same time tries against the South Africans will be hard to come by. The only try England have scored in the knock-out stages came because of a French player's mistake - letting the ball bounce - it is mistakes like this that the South Africans won't make.

Another danger is that England have peaked too soon. No matter that the French played no where near as well as we know they can, the Englih team have already come through two mammoth games - physically and mentally, and now they have to do it again. The self proclaimed 'Grumpy old Men' in the English team do know one thing for sure. They really shouldn't be where they are, and only South Africa stand between them and a serious chunk of history - no team has ever retained the Rugby World Cup. 'Only South Africa' - see it doesn't sound so hard when you say it like that.

But it is hard. For crying out loud there's a South African who can outrun a greyhound or something (although quite how good a training regime this is remains to be seen, especially as we don't actually have any greyhounds on the English team). Even worse, Josh Lewsey, the man who scored England's try against France is injured, however, his probable replacement - Mark Cueto - is one of the few positives to come out of England's inter-world cup wilderness. As well as him we have a player who should be up for the challenge to say the least. Jason Robinson. He pulled a hamstring during the England-SA group game and at that point it looked like career over, as he's retiring from rugby after the championship, now he has a chance to go out on a monumental high.

Still, I can't see the trophy going to anyone but South Africa, it's just a case of what the score is. There is a danger, as in the group game that the Springboks will run away with it from the off. If that happens then it's game over. If, however, England can stay within, say 5 points, of South Africa up to half time, or even later, then we have a real chance of snatching it and elevating Jonny to National Demi-God.