At a stretch...

All three of the ‘bigger’ teams kept their World Cup hopes alive on Sunday, although they were stretched by a trio of so-called ‘minnows’.

As is becoming a recurring theme at this tournament, the minnows showed no fear against the historically strong sides and proved the gap in world rugby is narrowing.

Wales ended their Samoa World Cup hoodoo, having lost to the Pacific Islanders in 1991 and 1999, by holding on for a 17-10 victory thanks in large part to a try by Shane Williams.

England and France beat Georgia and Canada 41-10 and 46-19 respectively, although it was a far closer contest on the pitch than those score lines would suggest.

England were made to work hard for their victory and had Georgia had a better goalkicker it could have been a vastly different story, while France rallied in the final 15 minutes to score three tries to stretch their lead over a tired Canadian side.

Both matches were close until the final 20 minutes, when Georgia and Canada tired – not for lack of conditioning, but rather because they had played only four days earlier.

Welshman Falconed:

Wales flank Dan Lydiate went off injured after all of nine minutes of the match against Samoa, but not before recording an embarrassing moment.

A Welsh line-out went array as Lydiate was lifted out of the shade and into the bright sunlight, only to lose sight of the ball and cop a blow to the face having been momentarily blinded.

Commentator Murray Mexted’s sharp eyes caught the incident and he couldn’t resist a chuckle at the replay of the big flank getting ‘Falconed’.

World Cup grows on Wallabies:

Prop James Slipper is gradually sprouting a moustache during the World Cup in a bet with his Wallaby teammates Scott Higginbotham and Rob Simmons.

The 22-year-old tight-head calls his Queensland Reds group the ‘Three Musketeers’ and laughs at his attempt to cultivate his one-week old ‘mo.’

“I’m getting a head-start, that’s for sure, I think I need one,” Slipper said of his indiscernible growth.

“A few of my mates in the team have egged me on to do it because I was so appalling at it on last year’s tour to Europe.

“Along with Scott Higginbotham and Rob Simmons we’re known as the Three Musketeers.

“We’ll just see how we go, it depends on how we go as a team… it could be the ending.”

Jamie lets it slip:

Ireland No.8 Jamie Heaslip made an unusual revelation – he doesn’t watch rugby on TV, and prefers American football instead.

“I don’t really watch much rugby. The only sport I really watch is NFL,” said the 27-year-old, adding that he could yet make a name for himself in the sport.

“I could maybe get there as a linebacker. Tight end maybe?” He added: “I don’t really (support) a team because I was late into it.”

The ‘Gutbuster’:

The World Cup was not the only sporting event in town in Dunedin on Sunday as runners of all ages took part in the Baldwin Street Gutbuster.

In this case, ‘Gutbuster’ refers to the expression to ‘bust a gut’ or make an intense effort.

And that was definitely required in a race up what is, according to the Guinness Book of Records, the world’s steepest street.

Running the 750 metre length of Baldwin Street would be a decent challenge on the flat.

But with an average gradient of 1 in 3.41 and an incline of 1 in 2.86 at its steepest, running to the top and back down again, as competitors were required to do in Sunday’s race, was no easy task.

Indeed veterans of the event, this year part of the Celebrate Hidden Dunedin festival, say going downhill, where the inexperienced can become a mass of flailing arms and legs, is more dangerous than the initial climb.

“The race has been going for 24 years… it seemed a good idea at the time, Bruce Cowan of Dunedin’s Hill City Athletic Club, which organises the event, told AFP. “I’m more of a long and slow 10 or 15 kilometre man myself.”

Journalists from around the world, in Dunedin for Sunday’s World Cup match between England and Georgia, had been invited, before the race proper, to run four legs (two up and two down) against a “60-year-old man”.

But most reporters smelt a rat, despite the enticing prize of a NZ$100 (US$82, £52) bar tab.

They were right, for Dave Kernahan is no ordinary 60-year-old, but rather a local Dunedin celebrity for having run up and down Baldwin Street more times than anyone else.

Indeed he celebrated his 60th birthday by doing 60 lengths (30 up, 30 down).

Kernahan, however, was not always such a a dedicated runner.

“Fifteen years ago, I’d been made redundant from the meat works four times and I sat at home and got fat,” Kernahan, who had to make do with just the race itself Sunday, said. “Then, one day, I looked up here (Baldwin Street) and thought ‘that’s it’.”

Among the crowd of spectators watching this year’s edition was former Scotland and British and Irish Lions rugby coach Jim Telfer, renowned for putting his players through punishing training sessions.

But Telfer said the Gutbuster would have proved too much for his teams.

“It would have killed them,” Telfer, in New Zealand for the World Cup, said.

The record time for the race is 1 minute 56 seconds set by Sasha Daniels, whom Kernahan said had joined the New Zealand Navy, in 1994.

That record remained intact Sunday, with winner Glen Ballam first in a time of 2 mins 32 secs, after the 800m specialist advanced from second place with a sprint finish in the final few strides.

Ballam, a 20-year-old student at Dunedin’s Otago University, asked if he had any advice for a New Zealand team bidding to win the World Cup for the first time in 24 years, replied: “Pick me on the wing.”