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Lucky France are able to field an unchanged team for Saturday night’s semi-final against Wales. The same fifteen that defeated England at Eden Park last Saturday will run out on the same pitch for the Gallic-Celtic confrontation.

Maxime Medard, Vincent Clerc, Aurélien Rougerie, Maxime Mermoz, Alexis Palisson, Morgan Parra, Dimitri Yachvili, Jean-Baptiste Poux, William Servat, Nicolas Mas, Pascal Pape, Lionel Nallet, Thierry Dusautoir (c), Julien Bonnaire, Imanol Harinordoquy

New Zealand

Whilst the All Blacks as a team may look strong, individual players seem to be falling by the wayside as the tournament progresses. Having now lost two number 10s to groin injuries with Colin Slade going down in the Argentina quarter-final, Stephen Donald is now called into the squad, along with winger Hosea Gear who replaces Mils Muliaina who injured his shoulder during his 100th test match for New Zealand.

On the upside backs Israel Dagg and Richard Kahui are available for selection for this weekend’s semi-final clash with Australia.

Australia

Fullback Kurtley Beale is nursing a hamstring injury he received just before the end of Australia’s epic battle against South Africa on Sunday. If he doesn’t recover in time for the semi-final match, Adam Ashley-Cooper is likely to play fullback for the game against New Zealand on Sunday.

Wales

Another team with fly-half concerns are Wales, with Rhys Priestland injuring his shoulder during their quarter-final match against Ireland on Saturday. Again the coaching staff will take a ‘wait and see’ approach with the injury, with James Hook or Stephen Jones likely candidates to fill the role if Priestland doesn’t recover in time.

We are now less than two weeks away from finding out which team will be crowned Rugby World Champions. Only four teams are left in the hunt, Wales, France, Australia and New Zealand and all will be acutely aware that their performances over the next two weeks will define their status within world rugby for the next four years. Will they be also-rans or glorious victors? This weekend the four teams will be reduced to two after the semi-finals are played at Eden Park in Auckland. We’ll take a very look at how the Openside Predictor sees the two matches panning out and give you an insight who the winners and losers may be.

Wales 27 France 19

With a resounding defeat of Ireland last weekend, the Welsh team are going from strength to strength as the World Cup progresses. The Openside Predictor sees no reason to doubt that the team will continue its great run and predicts an 8 point defeat of France. Although France played well to beat England, their inconsistency may well let them down against a Welsh team that are improving game by game.

New Zealand 36 Australia 21

No team has yet really troubled the hosts, even when briefly behind Argentina at the weekend, you always felt the All Blacks would step up a gear and eventually dominate the Pumas. The Openside Predictor sees this All Black domination continuing next weekend against Australia. Some may say the Wallabies were lucky against South Africa, others will say they played good defence, whatever the reason for their quarter-final win, their form will have to improve to make any dent in armour of the All Blacks. New Zealand by 15 points? No reason to see why not.

What a great weekend of international rugby we had! Great to see teams playing at 100% intensity with everything on the line. We’ll start with a couple of bizarre facts from the weekend, only one winning team, New Zealand, had a 100% record in the pool phase. Looks like losing a game in the pool phase may not be a bad thing after all. Three of the four teams left in the tournament are coached by New Zealanders, Graham Henry, Warren Gatland and Robbie Deans. Anyway back to the games and first up we had the Celtic clash between Ireland and Wales in the capital city, Wellington.

Wales 22 Ireland 10 (23-18)

Wales’ recent ranking improvement appeared to have been justified as three tries from JJV Davies, Phillips and SM Williams were more than enough to see off the challenge from the Irish. Only Earls dotted down for the Emerald Isle as the Dragons continue their great form in the 2011 World Cup. Will this be the World Cup where Wales take the rugby world by storm? Next up they face northern rivals France.

France 19 England 12 (19-25)

Well the Openside Predictor got this match totally wrong with a predicted England victory. It was third time lucky for coach Livremont playing Parra at number 10 when after two losses, the French dominated England to take the match by 19 points to 12. Both teams scored a couple of tries but it was two penalties by Yachvili and a drop goal from Trinh-Duc that nudged the French ahead.

Australia 11 South Africa 9

If you just saw the Quade Cooper highlights from this game, you could have reasonably assumed that South Africa had taken this game easily. But somehow Cooper’s teammates covered his errant kicking, handling and tackling to beat the Springboks in what was the game of the weekend in terms of excitement if not skill. Australian captain Horwill scored the only try with great Australian defence denying any tries for Souith Africa.

New Zealand 33 Argentina 10 (40-10)

Tries from Read and Thorn and a great kicking performance from Weepu ensured that Argentina never really had a look-in in the final quarter-final. Whilst the All Blacks were not firing on all cylinders they easily overcame the Pumas and still look good to capture the World Title for only the second time despite numerous injuries to key players.

Marc Lievremont has announced two changes to the starting line-up for the French team in their quarter-final match against England in Auckland.

M Medard, V Clerc, A Rougerie, M Mermoz, A Palisson, M Parra, D Yachvili, J-B Poux, W Servat, Nicolas Mas, P Pape, L Nallet, J Bonnaire, I Harinordoquy, T Dusautoir (capt)

Prop Nicolas Mas returns from injury that meant he missed the last three pool games and Imanol Harinordoquy is re-called at number 8.

England have named four changes in their line-up from the group that narrowly defeated Scotland last weekend.

Ben Foden, Chris Ashton, Manusamoa Tuilagi, Toby Flood, Mark Cueto, Jonny Wilkinson, Ben Youngs, Matt Stevens, Steve Thompson, Dan Cole, Louis Deacon, Tom Palmer, Tom Croft, Lewis Moody (capt), Nick Easter

Toby Flood joins the starting team at second five-eighth, whilst Tom Palmer and Nick Easter get the nod over Courtney Lawes and James Haskell respectively. Mark Cueto is back on the wing due to Delon Armitage’s suspension.

Wales team to face Ireland in Wellington on Saturday night

L Halfpenny, G North, J Davies, J Roberts, S Williams, R Priestland, M Phillips, G Jenkins, H Bennett, A Jones, L Charteris, A-W Jones, D Lydiate, S Warburton (capt), T Faletau

Winger Shane Williams and Lydiate return from injury, Davies is picked over Scott Williams and lock Wyn Jones gets the nod from coach Warren Gatland.

Meanwhile Ireland name an unchanged team

R Kearney, T Bowe, B O’Driscoll (capt), G D’Arcy, K Earls, R O’Gara, C Murray, C Healy, R Best or S Cronin, M Ross, D O’Callaghan, P O’Connell, S Ferris, S O’Brien, J Heaslip

Rory Best will start at hooker if he passes a fitness test after injuring his shoulder last weekend.

Wales 23 Ireland 18

Despite a strong performance in the pool phase, the Openside predictor sees Wales taking the first quarter-final over an in-form Ireland team. Wales have been beating up on the ‘minnows’ during the pool phase which would have increased their Openside Ranking whilst Ireland, of course, caused one of the upsets of the world cup by beating ‘second-favourites’ Australia. We see this one going down to the wire but Wales may just have the edge over Ireland.

England 25 France 19

France are the only team in the quarter-finals with two losses and we’re predicting a third for them on Saturday in Auckland. Whilst England have hardly been on fire, they always seem to do enough to win, just ask a Scotsman. France will need to massively improve over the next week or else England will walk this one. The only distraction for England may be their off-field issues.

Australia 24 South Africa 23

The closest predicted game of the quarters sees the southern hemisphere giants South Africa and Australia battle it out in Wellington. The Openside predictor gives this to the Wallabies by the narrowest of margins. South Africa have been playing well, but Australia have great form from the Tri Nations behind them.

New Zealand 40 Argentina 10

The only game that could turn into a blowout according to the predictor. New Zealand are on fire and Argentina seem to be struggling to score points. Dan Carter’s absence will make no difference to the outcome of this game, New Zealand are on a roll.

Semi-Finals

SF1 – Wales 23 England 20

Recent results have elevated Wales to tie with England as the top northern  hemisphere team and the predictor gives them the edge over them in the semi-final. In what would be an absolute corker of a match, Wales are predicted to clinch a place in the final with a narrow three point win.

SF2 – New Zealand 39 Australia 23

Home field advantage gives New Zealand an easy predicted win over Australia in the second semi-final.

Bronze Final – Australia 26 England 20

Australia will claim the Bronze Final with a six point win over England.

World Cup Final – New Zealand 39 Wales 20

Slowly but surely Wales’ predicted exit from this world cup has improved as the pool phase progressed. However despite being predicted to reach the final Wales will fall at the final hurdle with New Zealand predicted to win by 19 points.

And now we have only eight. Twelve teams have now packed their bags and are on their way home, most expected to be making the trip right now, but some would have thought their visit to New Zealand would last at least a week longer. Here’s a quick rewind of the weekend’s games and how the final round of pool matches played out.

Pool A

We had a sense an upset was coming. We’d had (perhaps ironically) Canada beating Tonga and Argentina over-coming the Scots, but they really weren’t major upsets, we were due a BIG one! And on Saturday night in Wellington we got it. When Tonga led at half-time by 13 to 6, we sensed something special was about to happen, rugby history was about to be made. The brave Tongans hung on, desperately at times, in the second forty minutes to close out a momentus 19 to 14 victory over the French. To say the French played within themselves is an under-statement, yet take nothing away from the Tongans, they went out determined to win and shut the French down. But like a cruel plot twist, France will progress to the quarter-finals and Tonga travel home, such is the way of sport, a lack of bonus points prevented them from making the quarters. In the other Pool A game, a rampant and Dan Carter-less New Zealand team over-whelmed a brave Canadian team by 79 points to 15.

Pool B

After the excitement of the Wellington upset, Scottish fans hoped for a similar experience in Auckland in the final game on Saturday and for 76 minutes it looked as if they would cause the second upset of the day. But England’s winger Chris Ashton broke Scottish hearts when he scored in final minutes of the game, the scoreline finishing 16 – 12 to England. Only an unlikely Georgia victory over Argentina would see the Scots taking any further part in the World Cup. However Argentina ground out a 25 to 7 win to claim second spot in Pool B.

Pool C

In a contrast to Pools A and B, nothing untoward occurred in Pool C. Australia over-whelmed the Russians and Ireland ran out easy winners in their clash with Italy. Ireland and Australia progress to the quarters, the rest fly home.

Pool D

Pacific Island hearts were truly broken in this pool over the weekend, with Both Samoa and Fiji losing to South Africa and Wales respectively. Samoa pushed the South Africans close but South Africa did just enough to win 13 points to 5 and register four wins out of four to claim the pool. Wales followed up with a convincing win over Fiji, with a 66 to nothing rout.

We’re now getting to the pointy end of the round robin phase in the 2011 Rugby World Cup. A number of teams have already packed their bags and checked out of the tournament and after this weekend a total of 12 teams will be looking forward to 2015. For the other 8 teams, potential glory awaits in three weeks time in Auckland, four years of preparation have brought them this far and all are in with a chance of claiming the Webb Ellis trophy.

So let’s take a look at how the four pools stand right now and how the teams playing may or may not affect the final pool standings.

Pool A

Hosts New Zealand are the only team definitely in the next phase of the World Cup. However France, Canada and Tonga can all claim the prized second spot. The team with the biggest claim must be France – a win or draw against Tonga will allow France to progress. For Tonga to get through they must defeat France in Wellington on Saturday night and prevent France from getting a bonus point and get one themselves, a big ask against a French team whilst is definitely not performing on all cylinders, is getting the results they need. Canada have an exceedingly slim chance of getting through, a bonus point victory over New Zealand and a Tongan defeat of France with the French getting no bonus point. Yeah France will claim that second spot.

Pool B

Three teams in the hunt here, and the key game will be England v Scotland in Auckland on Saturday. An England victory will secure them a place in the next phase but Scotland must win and prevent England from getting a bonus point to progress. Scotland could squeak through if Georgia beat Argentina, but they probably won’t be relying on that happening. England and Argentina through from Pool B.

Pool C

Again three teams here, in similar situations. Surely Australia will beat Russia, thus making it a straight knockout game on Sunday between Italy and Ireland. We see the Irish being too strong for Italy and claiming the pool. Ireland and Australia from Pool C.

Pool D

South Africa and Samoa line-up in a must-watch game on Friday night. Samoa will be up for it after already claiming the Tri-Nations scalp of Australia recently, but South Africa are looking strong. Wales are up against their world cup nemesis, Fiji, on Sunday in Hamilton but based on current form an upset is unlikely. Unfortunately for Samoa, if they tie with Wales on points after their games this weekend, Wales will get the nod after defeating Samoa a couple of weeks ago. We see South Africa and Wales progressing.

Georgia v Romania – 26 to 20

Georgia – Lasha Khmaladze, prop David Zirakashvili and flanker Giorgi Chkhaidze are in

Lasha Khmaladze, Revaz Gigauri, David Kacharava, Tedo Zibzibadze, Alexander Todua, Merab Kvirikashvili, Irakli Abuseridze (c), David Khinchagishvili, Jaba Bregvadze, David Zirakashvili, Ilia Zedginidze, Vakhtang Maisuradze, Giorgi Chkhaidze, Mamuka Gorgodze, Dimitri Basilaia

Romania – captain Marius Tincu is back in the fifteen having been rested against England along with numerous other changes. Here’s the starting fifteen for tonight’s clash

Iulian Dumitras, Stefan Ciuntu, Csaba Gal, Tiberius Dimofte, Madalin Lemnaru, Marin Dumbrava, Florin Surugiu, Mihaita Lazar, Marius Tincu (c), Paulica Ion, Valentin Ursache, Cristian Petre, Mihai Macovei, Ovidiu Tonita, Daniel Carpo