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Robinson's finale soured by injury and drugs test

England's rugby players did what so many amateurs do after a disappointing match in Paris last night - they went for a drink. Not, though, the unfortunate Jason Robinson: having left the field prematurely with a dislocated right shoulder, he was then required for a random drugs test.

That delayed his visit to hospital for an X-ray and, by the time he returned to the team hotel in Neuilly at 2.45am, all he was looking for was his bed. The injury is likely to stop him playing what would have been his last representative game, for the Barbarians against South Africa on December 1.

Hail or wail - have your say

English rugby fans are crying into their bacon and eggs this morning as South Africans the world over are gleefully tucking into their biltong.

However you're feeling, this is the place to get it off your chest. Perhaps you want to commiserate with Jonny or congratulate Percy. Maybe you think Brian Ashton deserves a knighthood - or the sack. Or perhaps you just want to thank the French for putting on such a wonderful event.

Get your voice heard here. Now.

England in Paris

The sky over Paris today is watery blue and scarred with white airoplane trails. The crowds on the Champs Elysees, and beneath the Arc de Triomphe, and in the square in front of the Louvre are flecked with white.

It is presumably never hard to spot an Englishman in Paris, but it has never been easier today. Entire families, from baby to grandfather, are trailing about the boulevards in England rugby tops. In front of the Eiffel Tower, white-shirted fans have colonised a large area of the park in front of the television screen, staking their places for the evening. Near the front, sitting  before a shrub bush which they have decorated with empty beer cans, are students from the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester, and from Bristol West of England University. In front of them is a shopping trolley, loaded with beer, and as George S-B (he won't give me his full double barrelled name) put it: "We have a bit of the traditional vino too to keep the frogs happy."

It cost George £41 to get to Paris. He pitched his tent in front of the screen but was asked to move by policemen, after which he pitched it in some nearby bushes. They began drinking at 10am. Would they last the evening? They weren't sure. "Eating is cheating," said Fergus Playfer.

Cath Robinson, from Hartlepool, was behind the posts through which Jonny Wilkinson kicked in 2003. She is busy painting the faces of her travelling companions: Glynn Evans, Paul Rudd, Craig Robson and her husband David. "We decided to come on Monday," says Mr Rudd. "We will have all been divorced by our wives by the time we get home." They ply your correspondent with lager. "They're only tiddly ones," says Mr Rudd. "Take another one for your travels." They also offer me a lift home, and ask if I have a driving licence and might be sober tomorrow morning. They have to drive out of Paris at 6am.

Underneath the Eiffel Tower, two students from Cambridge dressed as St George are knighting a string of South African fans. "St George seemed approproate," says George Dean. "We are hoping to slay some Springboks tonight."

A red route master bus pulls up beside the tower. Aboard are Chobham Rugby Club: there is a Queen Elizabeth I, a Richard Lion Heart and a Sherlock Holmes among them. "It's really hard to think of English things rather than British ones," said Rose Seale, who has travelled in a very authentic Virgin Queen outfit. On the way they picked up fellow fans in their bus. "The French have been very supportive. We have had toots all the way down, even from the French lorry drivers."

"We have only had to do two U-turns for low bridges," says Andy Penn, 52, the owner of the bus. "And a police man did get fed up with us after we kept going round and round the Arc de Triomphe."    

Finale

A lady from New Zealand whom I had contacted earlier this week via the online message board Gumtree calls to say she has arrived in Paris to pick up her pre-booked ticket. She offers it for £650. I should hold my nerve, it seems a little over the odds, but seeing the train-loads of ticketless fans, I have no nerve left. I have missed too many tickets. We meet in her hotel on the northern edge of town. We have neither of us done this before. She is Mel Sagote, from Wellington, a lawyer now based in Surrey. The ticket is violet with a silver hologram, and bears the words ‘Finale’. Finally. I have never seen such a beautiful piece of paper.

To get here I have spent £21.70 on a train down to Dover, £20 on a return ferry ride, £46 booking a train back to Calais on Sunday. For the lift down from Calais, myself and Toomas, my fellow Estonian hitchhiker, paid petrol and toll road costs: that was 26 Euros or £18.10. My campsite comes in at 11 Euros a night, £23 for three nights stay. That's £128.80, so I'm now down £778.80 for the trip. Also my ferry home gets in too late for a train and I may have to spend a night at a B&B in Dover, another £34, but I'm on budget. I may have to implement the Australian backpacker Jonny Christie’s five Euro diet, but I have a ticket, and suddenly, nothing else seems to matter.   

All about the contacts

As I run about Paris - quite literally with the trains all up the spout - word reaches me from readers of this blog who are now on their way. "If you find more tickets than you need, call me," writes a solicitor, Nick Jervis. Meanwhile there is elation in the the chaotic-sounding Vavasour household.

They had planned to be on holiday this weekend, but all was placed on hold at England's ascension to the final, and Sarah Vavasour has been working her contacts quite ruthlessly all week to secure a ticket for her "rugby mad husband".

Her quest illustrates the curious nature of this ticket market. There are mass exchanges beneath the Eiffel tower and outside the Stade de France, but so many tickets have taken a route through corporate hospitality companies and sponsors, and surface through a series of informal networks. 

Mr Vavasour, a doctor, had been depressed at the general lack of corporate hospitality in the NHS: a little brother in the City had little problem laying his hands on a ticket. Then he was told of an orthopaedic surgeon who had been trying to get rid of 2 tickets. "By the time the very kind theatre nurse had tracked him down, he had sold them," writes Mrs Vavasour. Then there was a mutual friend "who had had a ticket, but was actually on holiday in Mallorca with wife and new baby, and who would have "given" it to Simon if he had known, but had just sold it.

"However dawn lifted on a brighter day. The younger brother's provider of tickets has come up trumps and got tickets not only for Simon, but also his elder brother - but at a cost. Looking at the moment at £800 each, but incl travel and accommodation. Let's hope they're kosher. As a former lawyer these things worry me." From where I'm standing it looks like a great deal.

All that remains now is for the two of them to attend a 50th birthday party this evening, for Mr Vavasour to race to Kent afterwards to get a dawn ferry to Calais, for Mrs Vavasour to get her daughter to Norwich High School for Girls at 4am for a Netball and Hockey tour in Barbados, and for herself her remaining three children to get to the Dordogne for their half-term holiday. Judging from her emails, this is all in a weekend's work.

Ticket inflation

I have found a man who knows a man in the French rugby federation. He leaves a message on my mobile saying he can secure me a ticket. The asking price is £450. I call him back: he has sold it. “I don’t think you will get one now” he says. At the Stade de France, French and Antipodean fans picking up pre-booked tickets are quickly surrounded by touts. A British tout who has been here several days tells me: “Demand is hot now. The price is Euros 1-1,500.” At the Gare du Nord, arriving England fans find a city still paralysed by a rail strike. Perhaps it reminds them of home.

Darren Lees, 23, a Royal Navy marine engineer and Tim Myatt, 25, a rugby coach, have arrived without tickets and due to the strike, they cannot reach their hotel on the edge of town. They are remarkably cheerful about their predicament. "We will be sleeping at the Stade De France tonight to try and get tickets," says Darren.

They do not have sleeping bags. "Alcohol will keep us warm," said Tim.

"Besides," says Darren. "We are built for comfort not for speed."

Their plan is to intercept French fans on their way to the play-off with Argentina, who may have bought final tickets. "We have got to get there sharpish," says Darren. "The next load of England supporters arrive in 35 minutes."

Missed opportunity

On the bus into town I met a family of New Zealanders, heading for Euro Disney, and made what may turn out to be a big mistake. Barry Clark, 47, an engineer, had sold up the two businesses he had built up and headed for Europe on "the trip of a lifetime", his wife and two kids in tow. He had bought two tickets for the World Cup Final, together behind the posts, he offered them to me for £800 but came down to £700. For that money I could take a friend in with me and still get home on budget. I took his number, surely he would not bump into any England fans at Euro Disney. He texted me twenty minutes later to say he had sold both for Euros 1,200.   

The Paris camp

The England camp have been worrying about their sleep patterns as they attempt to set their body clocks for the 9pm match on Saturday. There has been similar worries in my own, albeit smaller, ticket hunting camp. This has something to do with the fact that my lodgings in Paris are, in a very real sense, a camp. The Mayor of Paris had advised England fans to bring a tent and I am sleeping, or rather not sleeping in one, in a camping site on the western edge of the city, in the Bois de Boulogne.

It seemed a strange proposition, camping in a large city. People returning from camping trips to the Amazon rainforest often talk about how noisy it is with all the insects: they say it is like camping in a city, although I am certain it is not as similar to camping in a city as actually camping in a city. I seem to have pitched my tent on the shattered remains of an ancient pavement. It is rather cold too - I had worried about finding a pitch, but the lady at the desk just laughed and said: "Of course we have spare pitches. It's winter."

Such are the mild hardships endured by ticketless England fans for the sake of the match tomorrow. The tent next door is draped with a St George cross, at reception were a group of seven students from Oxford Brookes who had arrived overnight on the coach from Victoria. "It was an impulse decision on Tuesday," says one. "Don't give our names, we're skipping lectures." 

It is a good place for ticket hunting. In the caravan area I find a camper van draped with an Australian flag. Stuart Lyon, 23, from Perth is at the start of a six week trip round Europe with three friends. In May he bought two violet Category 1 World Cup Final tickets, the plum seats, via his rugby club at home. He is selling for Euros 1,200. "I wanted to go to the game, but to be honest the money would let me travel longer," he says. To save money while in Paris they have been setting each other challenges, the latest of which is to eat for less than Euros 25 for five days.

Jonny Christie, also 23, is winning. He has only eaten up five euros since Monday. He is selling an orange category 2 ticket for behind the posts for Euros 1,000, but I get him to knock off Euros 200, or fifty weeks worth of hot dinners. In the end I let them go - I have a few other means to try first. They may have sold them by now. They were planning to head to the Eiffel Tower with a sign advertising tickets, attached to a baguette. Yesterday in Paris some bad seats apparently sold for around Euros 300, but the price seems to be bouncing back today as England fans arrive en masse. This is getting awfully nerve wracking.

What the South African papers say

In an article highlighting South Africa's points of weakness, Bruce Fraser of The Sowetan admits the Springboks need to improve their scrummaging, neuter Andrew Sheridan and prevent Jonny Wilkinson kicking England to victory. He also suspects, however, that Bryan Habana could decide the match.

In the Mail & Guardian, Andy Capostagno says that he expects South Africa to win on Saturday but does not think victory will have the same far-reaching effect of their 1995 World Cup triumph. "The result won't be bandied around as an example of nation-building," Capostagno writes. "By the time the next international season rolls around, it will be business as usual."

Stranded in Calais

Things started to go wrong sometime after we passed into French waters. I had thought it would be easy enough: I would take the ferry: £20. It would be crowded with ebullient England fans driving on to Paris, someone would offer me a lift. What a civilised and ingenious way to arrive in the French capital, when everything else bar a £90 flight from Norwich International Airport was booked out.

At the ferry terminal, I had hoped for a vast crowd, flags, ticker tape, tearful relatives waving goodbye, perhaps a brass band. In fact the P&O 10:55am left with a disappointing lack of fanfare, and, it has to be said, a disappointing lack of England fans with room in their cars. The jazz band heading to Paris said their van was full of equipment, the lorry drivers were already carrying passengers, and the retired couple from Leicester whose 25th wedding anniversary holiday had been turned by the unexpected events of the past weeks, into a rugby pilgrimage, pointed out that they were already taking ten relatives in their two cars.

In Calais, everyone was having lunch. The station was locked: the strike that was announced after France were knocked out of the Cup was ongoing, and SNCR does not strike half-heartedly. There were no coaches, the hire car agency in town was out of cars. I needed to be in Paris. I had grand ticket-hunting plans to implement, strategies to unfurl, contacts to cultivate. Instead I was sitting at a bus stop with two pensioners from Canterbury who were discussing whether Sea France or P&O had the better waiting lounges. (P&O’s are apparently better, although it is not a cut and dried case). I felt like Henry VIII, landing on the continent dreaming of victories to match Charlemagne, but remaining forever stuck beside the sea.

It was only as I set out on foot for the nearest motorway junction, intending to appeal to the kindness of French truck drivers that my luck changed and I found myself in a car with an investment banker and a company director, both from London, and an Estonian business graduate. Robin Pleasants, 36, and Graham Backhouse, 38, had planned to go inter-railing but their tickets never reached them due to the postal strike, and when they got to France at the crack of dawn, they found themselves stranded due to the train strike.

“I think the last socialist bone in my body has been broken,” said Mr Backhouse. They had hired a car, and picked up Toomas Pallo, 24, another stranded traveller. “Everything was booked. It’s taken me three days,” he said. “Since when did it take three days to get to Paris?” They dropped Toomas and myself at a junction on the ring-road. There are no buses, no metro trains, no free taxis. We trudge into town. Perhaps it is best: I need to save all my pennies for the ticket hunt tomorrow.

Brian Ashton yesterday paid tribute to the army of fans heading for Paris despite the transport strike. "They'll get here," he said. "I don't know how but they'll get here. We are known as a nation of channel swimmers after all."

Just the ticket

On the Ferry. The white cliffs are glowing in bright sunshine above a green sea, the grey town of Dover is slipping away, another ferry follows in our wake. There are England rugby fans at the bar, there are pensioners bound for Calais, there are large parties of school children off on Le Day Trip, and there is among the travellers, the odd antipodean accent, indicating perhaps, someone with a final ticket they might be persuaded to part with.

I accost a New Zealander. Is he perhaps going to watch the rugby, I wonder.

"Well I would be mate," he says. "But my team's gone home."

Of course, of course, so perhaps he has…

“They got home at three in the morning, black arm bands. The coach resigned straight away, didn't even wait, there'll be lynch mobs waiting for him," he says.

Yes, terrible, I say, but does he have a...

"It amazes me," he interrupts. "The favourites for this tournament were New Zealand, Australia, France. South Africa haven't had to play any of them and they're in the final. And how many times have we beaten them? I mean we've beaten France at practically all our last meetings, but the French had a plan and they executed it."

Indeed, indeed, I wonder...

"England have done no favours for the game of rugby you know," he continues. "People are kicking from all over the place now, it's just about getting into the half and then every penalty, every scrum, they go for a drop goal. I don't mind the forwards, they were good, they dominated Australia. Ours would have done the same. We cut them to pieces last time. The French coach had a game plan for the match against us. Avoid scrums. You know how many scrums there were in the first half? Three. They just kicked for line-outs. Mind you we went to sleep at half-time. You have to admire that French coach though. Our coach didn't have a plan. Didn't bother with one."

He stops talking. Very quickly, I say: "Do you perhaps have a ticket for the final that you would be willing to sell at face value?"

He looks surprised. "A ticket? No, I'll watch it in a pub I think."

I'll have to keep looking.

WARNING: Offensive (but you may find this funny)

OK, we've made fun of the French and had some banter with the Aussies and now those nations have been put to the sword it's time to turn our attention to the South Africans.

There's not such a rich seam of material to be mined here, but those of a certain age may remember the furore a certain satirical show caused back in the 1980s when a bunch of puppets sang a song called "Never met a nice South African". The Mary Whitehouse brigade were up in arms but Spitting Image fans lapped it up.

The politics are certainly out of the Ark - and in no small way offensive - but this is comedy from another era. It's interesting to think that this would never get onto mainstream telly these days.

Of course we know things have changed for the better since then - which is why we in the UK welcome South Africans with open arms. Well - we have to - otherwise who would serve us in our pubs and clubs...?

Anyone easily offended should give this a miss but otherwise sit back and let us know what you think of this coarse but classic comedy...

What the South African papers say

The Mail & Guardian reports that sales of biltong have increased as punters seek something to chew on during Springboks games. Shop-owners, however, say beer has not shifted as many units as expected.

A story on Soweto Rugby Club in The Star says that South Africa's success is helping to promote the sport among the children of townships who traditionally play football. In a column for the newspaper for the region, The Sowetan, Tim Modise, a member of the 2010 football World Cup organising committtee, confirms this with an article that praises Jake White's team.

Off to Paris

Prices have come down a little today on internet auction and ticket re-sale sites, with some going briefly at around £750. According to the CEO of one of these sites, Get Me In, this is because fans are now worried there will be no accommodation for them. They expect a further drop tomorrow and on Friday. On eBay, some sellers are addressing the accommodation need too and attempting to flog the rooms they have booked.

Meanwhile in Paris there are discouraging reports that touts are taking over, hoovering up the best tickets from French and antipodean fans for resale. Time to get to Paris and take my chances.

This in itself is no mean feat. You expect the best Eurostar trains to be booked up along with flights from London Airports, but even the all-night coach rides, possibly the most gruelling and uncomfortable means of getting to Paris, are all fully booked. National Express have been continuously laying on extra coaches through the week, but these seven hour journeys have been selling out like Led Zeppelin concerts. 

"We've laid on ten buses for each departure time and they're all full," said one of their sales agents. "It's like D Day." Seats on a flight tomorrow from Norwich to Paris Charles de Gaulle were still available for £90, and there were a few spaces for drivers on the Eurotunnel Shuttle and on the ferries, but anyone hoping to make it across the channel and down by public transport has their work cut out. SNCF go on their suspiciously-timed strike tomorrow: people travelling via Eurostar have been generally looked after but those English fans who arrive in Calais hoping to make their way onwards may find themselves stuck. I may be among them: I hope to find a ride with some of the English fans who disembark onto French soil tomorrow morning, the first wave of the great invasion.

Can I be your plus one?

The Downing Street press team were not sure if Gordon Brown had been given a plus one by the Rugby Football Union, though they think on balance that he would not be willing to sell it to me, or in some way privatise a spare ticket. It might get out.

Prince Harry is going too but if I want to be his plus one, a spokeswoman says, I will apparently have to join the end of a long line. She does not provide any further instructions about where I might join this line, she may be speaking metaphorically.

Lucky mascots

While I am pointing out to various well-ticketed organisations how important it is that I be given or sold a ticket, a fellow ticket-seeker contacts me to point out how much more important it is that he be given a ticket.

John Williams, 62, a semi-retired former headteacher, was at the 1966 football World Cup Final and at the Rugby World Cup Final in 2003. With this record of him turning up and England winning World Cups, he thinks the Rugby Football Union would be reckless not to give him a ticket this time around. They would almost be inviting defeat. He may have a difficult time of it. Both the RFU and the Professional Rugby Players' Association turned down my pleas for a ticket, even when they learned of the high level to which I had played under-thirteen rugby. 

The word from the England camp was that even the players themselves were struggling to cater for the demand from relatives, who like Jonny Wilkinson's mother, are planning to turn out this time.

Those corporate tickets

The Stade de France has a capacity of 80,000. On a good day, it seats another 400, according to the organisers. They announce the exact total once everyone is inside and the game is underway, which sort of means that they do not know how many people will be in the stadium on Saturday, which must give hope to those of us in the ticket-wanting predicament: there must be room somewhere.

For the final on Saturday, just over sixty per cent were sold to the public and are now being held or sold on eBay and elsewhere. Of the remainder - they won't give exact figures - a large chunk went to travel companies, to be sold in packages. Some of those tickets are being sold too, particularly by those disappointed antipodeans who do not now consider English rugby a sight worth watching. Then there are the corporate hospitality companies around the world, the VIPs, the rugby organisations and the sponsors, not forgetting the friends and family of the teams.

Somewhere amongst that lot, there must be a spare ticket, an unwanted plus one. I call a big French sponsor: Societe General. Did they have any tickets they would like to get rid of? It seems a strange request, given that they normally only offer corporate banking services, but a very nice lady on the switchboard puts me through to a lady who apparently knows the score.

"We don't have any tickets any more," she says. "All the most important people are already going. I am sorry. Maybe next time." SNCF, the French national railway, are getting back to me.

Twenty minute sell-out

A postscript to the previous post on this morning's official ticket sale. A sign appeared on the website just after noon announcing that tickets had, as suspected, sold out. My man from the organising committee said that they had sold out in around twenty minutes. In the end they had put up around two thousand tickets, far more than he had predicted yesterday, though as he said, this was a mere drop compared to the ocean of people repetitively clicking the "final sale" icon this morning.

Australia, New Zealand and Ireland would love to be "boring England"

It is always so easy to tell when England’s rugby team are going well, have confounded the world and frankly, wound up members of other nations to high heaven, so much so that they simply cannot hide their hatred and their rampaging jealousy of England, the English and their rugby team, any more.

You can tell by the number of “boring England” observations being made in the media. That is when you know that England are really in business, and not only that, but blissfully unconcerned and even thoroughly amused, by the reaction they provoke. Even we Welsh know it.

A glimmer of hope

I may have found a source, who I will call K. K's husband is also selling and K has to check that her husband has not already sold, but the ticket is £650. Tickets are currently going for that sort of price on the French version of eBay, but having made contact with K, she seems trustworthy. It would be a pick-up in Paris. I would stress that nothing is confirmed yet, particularly to Sally Woodward who wrote to me this morning warning that as well as having an excellent rugby name, she also had extensive rugby connections, and "if there was a spare ticket out there, I would have to get some of my cauliflower-eared props to relieve you of it, so I could go in your stead."

What the South African papers say

Eddie Jones, the South Africa technical advisor, has warned that the Springboks' have not nearly fulfilled their capability in France. Quoted in The Herald, Jones said:  “The South Africans have really impressed me with the amount of talent they have. They are humble guys, but they have enormous potential and I don't think we have seen them anywhere near their best as yet at this RWC."

Access denied

My attempts to storm the fortress of the Rugby World Cup organising committee website this morning have not proved victorious. I had opted for a full-frontal assault on the French and English pages, multiple windows, aggressive repeat mouse clicking, the full arsenal. All of it led me directly here, with, I expect, thousands of others. It was reassuring to learn that we were not being given access to the site in order to guarantee the quality of the service. In desperation I called in reinforcements: my colleague in Paris, Adam Sage, laid seige the France-only phone number, in what might be termed an attack from the rear. Still we were repulsed. The website says tickets are still being sold, but it seems likely that the only remaining official channel dried up a few minutes after it opened.

Pienaar's World Cup best XV

It was not so much what he said as the way he said it. Dropping into a newspaper stand at Les Sablons, the Metro station near the England team hotel in Neuilly, the vendor looked with disfavour at the purchased copy of The Times. "English?" he said with a grimace. "Would you have beaten the All Blacks?"

Who could blame him? So many Frenchmen had hoped this would be their sporting year, that there would be crowds up and down the Champs Elysee to celebrate a World Cup triumph, just as there had been for the footballers of 1998. That it had been the "strange" English who had eliminated France only made it worse.

Advice from fellow seekers

In the lull before the great push this morning, (the last official ticket sale will apparently begin at 9am our time) I ought to share with you the advice I have been offered so far on how to get into the Stade De France on Saturday without breaking the bank.

Last minute buying: Many people think tickets will be cheapest as the game begins. My only worry is that stewards may be more likely at that point to check your tickets against your ID if you are arriving when everyone else is already inside. Still, apparently this worked for many people at the semi-final.

The personal touch: In 1999 Peter Frazer, a Scottish rugby fan, went to Cardiff the week before the final and paid a visit to the offices of the Millennium Stadium, where it was to be held. "So long as you are persistent and polite (and don't take no for an answer) you will eventually end up speaking to the right person, and I guarantee that they will have at least a dozen or so tickets held back, and will let you buy one," he said.

Going under cover: A reader suggests that I go to Paris on Thursday and attempt to find a job as a bar steward or cleaner in the stadium. "Just before the match kicks off tell someone you just need to pop out for a second and disappear in the crowd". This worked for him at the FA Cup Final in 1990. A less complicated suggestion along the same lines comes from a veteran of several big football finals, a Liverpool fan who always manages to slip through the lines without a ticket. "Rugby's got to be the easiest bunk of all time," he said, wondering in addition what sort of man would fail in such conditions.

To buy or hold your nerve?

The tickets are out there, but what to pay? Some have been spending £3,000 today. Watching the time expire on lots that seem more reasonable, you wonder who you can trust. A man in north London is selling two tickets for £700 that he says he was given by his father. He cannot now attend the match because of unspecified “business”. He wants the payment to be made via a money transfer.

By yesterday evening a very nice-sounding lawyer from New Zealand had come down to around £900 for one of five tickets purchased several months ago: the original asking price had been £2,000. I’m looking to do the whole trip in £1,000 so that is still beyond me, but the consensus among my fellow ticket-purchasers seems to be that prices will come down as the week progresses. Ultimately, they say, the best time to buy will be just as the match starts. The alternative view, put to me by the head of Viagogo, one of the ticket exchange sites, was that prices will spike on Friday as people get more excited about the event.

In the mean time we all have an outside shot at one last official ticket sale. Tomorrow morning the Rugby World Cup organising committee are selling a few hundred tickets that have been returned by extraordinarily honest media organisations and from countries knocked out of the tournament. As demand rather outstrips supply, they have decided not to tell anyone precisely when this sale will start, or how many tickets they have. “If we do that,” a man from the committee said yesterday, “our server will crash.”

Failing that, we are all working what contacts we have. “The New Zealand friend whose father has got tickets is most unreasonably still going to go,” a lady, looking to supply her “rugby mad husband” wrote to me this afternoon. “Have tried the Shroders banker friend, whose son my husband coaches, to no avail; left messages on answer machines of all the children’s god parents . So far no luck from the Corporate City solicitor, the City headhunter, maybe the Army Lieutenant Colonel can arrange to ‘shoot’ someone with tickets.”

If you're tramping around Paris, here's where to sleep

With tens of thousands of English fans heading for the Rugby World Cup final against South Africa on Saturday and Paris officials warning that the city's hotels are full, many could end up sleeping rough.

But where to go? The Times has consulted an expert, Diego Zehner, who is amongst an estimated 8,000 homeless people in the French capital.

The One Thousand Pound World Cup Weekend

A few hours in to the hunt for a good-value World Cup ticket and a few truths are becoming painfully apparent. There are plenty of tickets around, on eBay, on message board sites like Craigslist and Gumtree (the latter two being particularly good for obtaining tickets from disgruntled antipodeans), and on the various ticket exchange sites, but despite this apparent glut, the price seldom falls below £1,000. The fact is rugby fans are prepared to pay more for their black market or 'secondary sale' tickets.

My target is to get to Paris and back and spend less than £1,000 in total, for tickets, travel and accommodation. That means finding either cheap tickets or extremely cheap everything else. Thank you to everyone who offered advice on how this might be accomplished. One frequent suggestion was to buy in the last hour before the game begins, from New Zealanders and Australians and French rugby fans who have still not off-loaded their tickets, and are consequently desperate to sell. Apparently this worked for many people at the semi-final.

Before that, there is still one official channel that remains. Tomorrow the Rugby World Cup organising committee will put a couple of hundred tickets up for sale on its website. These are mainly tickets that have been returned by media organisations - "We are scrabbling around and will have a few hundred tickets for sale as soon as the software is up and running," someone from the organising committee told me today.

Habana takes on the animal kingdom's best

We all know that Bryan Habana is fast, but in April he raced a cheetah to raise awareness of the threat to the fastest animal on earth. The cheetah more than held its own. Watch the video below.

The footage should also raise awareness in the England camp of Habana's threat to their World Cup ambitions. Luckily, all Brian Ashton's big cats are in the front row.

Tomorrow: watch footage of Os Du Randt racing a hippopotamus.

What the South African papers say

It is hardly the best preparation for the final. News has broken in South Africa today that Jake White is likely to leave his position as Springboks head coach even if his side beat England on Saturday. Speaking to The Star, White said: “What can I say? When I took over as coach, I said that I really wanted to win the World Cup. If this group wins, it is the most I can achieve."

Where there's a will...

It is the question that every newly-minted England rugby fan must have begun asking shortly after ten on Saturday evening. How do I get a ticket for the World Cup Final in Paris? Before that moment there had been other more pressing concerns. There had been a mortgage to pay, a leaking roof to fix, a kitchen to rewire, an old friend to meet, a cold to recover from and so on. There were also broader existential problems to contend with: I am nearly 30 and still have not written a symphony. When Mozart was my age, etc.

All of these things were swept away last Saturday: they now seem far-distant details of a refashioned landscape in which the central feature is a rugby match in Paris next Saturday. I am no mathematician, but the chances of England reaching another World Cup final, in any sport, in this lifetime, seem very slim. Surely this sort of dominance cannot be sustained for very long: in years to come as we watch our side beaten by a succession of new South American teams, we will look back on this period as a golden age, a brief era when English rugby players were world beaters, and reached the final in a tournament that was located conveniently close to London. If we do not go to this match, our grandchildren will ask why not. I have now begun my quest to find a ticket and a way to the Stade de France. It will not be easy. Acquaintances who are proper rugby fans tell me they obtained their tickets via a ballot that took place some time in the period before England reached the final, a period in which their motives for wanting a World Cup final ticket seem not a little mysterious.

On eBay they are going for several times the face value, at least a thousand pounds each, which is a price beyond my meagre budget. I’m hoping to find one at face value, which seems a long-shot when we are talking about a sold-out match, but it is still only the beginning of the week. A lot can happen before Saturday. A rugby fan would probably say it was all to play for, so long as I have the belief and am ready to battle for every metaphorical loose ball. Still, any advice would be appreciated. Please email me - will.pavia@thetimes.co.uk -with your suggestions, or post your comments below, which I will share in the spirit of solidarity with all the other new rugby fans, and by Saturday evening, God-willing, Jonny Wilkinson-kicking and our own ingenuity not lacking, we will surely toast victory from our stadium seats in Paris.

Good Wig

Occasional comedian Graham Rowntree on form in England's press conference earlier today.

Just to prove that not all Kiwis hate me

Even in a city like Paris, there are barely enough restaurants, cafes and coffee shops to accommodate all the rugby people and all the issues under discussion, in this wonderful World Cup. This morning, bleary-eyed and with laptops gently steaming back in the hotel, our little group was grieving for the magnificent Pumas who at their best may well have had the beating of South Africa. Yet when they put their foot on the pedal, they found only will, not power.

There are various large groups roaming the capital - there are the disgruntled French of course, the Australians looking for a party that has already ended for them, plus sundry rump groups of Welsh and Irish. Perhaps the most striking group are the Kiwis marauding around. They do not seem quite sure whether they should wear their black kit when in communal action, or whether they should shout: "Bleck, bleck," (that means Black, Black in English) at the games.

What the South African papers say

England's footballers have traditionally been inept at penalty-kicks, crashing out of several major tournaments through their inability to beat a goalkeeper from 12 yards. Perish the thought but there is the possibility that the nerve of our rugby counterparts could be equally tested on Saturday night, with the destination of the Webb Ellis Trophy being decided in a sudden death shoot-out should scores be level after extra-time.

Writing in Johannesburg's Mail & Guardian, Luke Phillips explains how South Africa have begun meticulous preparations for such a conclusion, with coach Jake White even suggesting he might select five reliable dead-ball kickers in his XV. Phillips writes: "South Africa are ready for a penalty shoot-out should the World Cup final against England on Saturday be called a stalemate after extra-time."

What the South African papers say

England's footballers have traditionally been inept at penalty-kicks, crashing out of several major tournaments through their inability to beat a goalkeeper from 12 yards. Perish the thought but there is the possibility that the nerve of our rugby counterparts could be equally tested on Saturday night, with the destination of the Webb Ellis Trophy being decided in a sudden death shoot-out should scores be level after extra-time.

Writing in Johannesburg's Mail & Guardian, Luke Phillips explains how South Africa have begun meticulous preparations for such a conclusion, with coach Jake White even suggesting he might select five reliable dead-ball kickers in his XV. Phillips writes: "South Africa are ready for a penalty shoot-out should the World Cup final against England on Saturday be called a stalemate after extra-time."

Bernard Laporte, the man who sold the Gallic soul

When Aime Jacquet became French football team manager in 1993, he dropped David Ginola and Eric Cantona and obtained a succession of goalless draws.

Five years later, his defensively-minded side won the World Cup and Jacquet became a national icon.

French public blame overconfidence for defeat

Tens of thousands of French people stood in the Champs de Mars under the Eiffel Tower to watch the semi-final. Hundreds of thousands more gathered in cafes and bistrots across the country. A total of 20m were at home in front of their television sets.

Rugby had never known anything like it in France - an enthusiasm to match anything Thierry Henry and his footballing teammates had ever produced.

And amid the euphoria following victory against the All Blacks, the result of the England game was a foregone conclusion: 84 per cent of the population was certain France would win, according to a poll on Saturday for Sud Ouest newspaper.

So the sense of disappointment and frustration was huge in the aftermath.

I bore the brunt when I bought Le Journal du Dimanche, the Sunday newspaper, with its banner front-page headline: 'Rageant' (Infuriating).

"Don't try speaking English in here today," said the newsagent. "We couldn't stand it."

The Kiwis won't go home

Five hours until kick-off. I feel nervous. And around town, you can really feel it too. Fans of the same shirts nod in recognition. Or on the whole they toast each in recognition and drink on. All of which brings me to the All Blacks.

Is rugby one of the most drug-free sports?

Well, are we all fooling ourselves? The International Board has announced that in the tournament to date, there have been no positive returns for performance-enhancing or recreational drugs - and this in one sport in which the pressure, intensity, physicality and demands might be seen as ripe for drug cheats.

Legends praise lesser nations

Five great rugby players were asked this week their view on prosposed reductions to the number of World Cup participants in 2011. There was not one dissenting voice from Martin Johnson (England), John Eales (Australia), Joel Stransky (South Africa), Zinzan Brooke (New Zealand) or Philippe Sella (France) that it should remain at twenty rather than go down to 16.

Still rugby daft

There is never an off season for Welsh rugby, never a time when it is not being discussed and merely a few months when the game is not being played.

Wales are out of the World Cup but that has not diminished the country's interest in the game. The passion for it remains. In Wales at the moment, there's the Magners League, the Premiership, the Heineken Cup, the retirement of some senior players, the anticipated appointment of a national coach, and of a director of elite performance.

Your country needs your backing

Well, that’s fairly conclusive. The Times has asked every World Cup-winning captain to predict the outcome of the weekend's semii-finals and none has backed England to win. Yup, even Martin Johnson, the man who led a third of the current side to glory in 2003, fears the worst for his former charges. What do you think? Can England upset expectations again? Go on, redress the balance in the comment box below.

New Zealand fans quash French claims

France will not just be playing England in the World Cup semi-final at the Stade de France. They will be playing the entire English-speaking rugby community.

That, at least, was the impression left by Bernard Lapasset, the chairman of the French Rugby Federation, as he explained why it would be good for the sport if his team went on to win the tournament.

No advice available

I don't know how many times I have been asked these questions from home, so I'll answer the lot of you in one go. Can England win on Saturday? Or was last weekend their final? Should I come this weekend for the semi or should I save myself for the final?

The Fraka

Check out this animated video clip for an entertaining and none too threatening French version of the Haka. It also includes a showdown between Jonny Wilkinson and Sebastien Chabal. We’re not sure why Jonny sprouts hair but the implication of him being swallowed by the hirsute beast is fairly clear.

Pim, Pam, Poum (Crash Bang Wallop)

Whatever happened to French flair? Le Monde asked last week.

In a long column, the newspaper lamented the end of the flamboyance which had been the hallmark of French rugby teams - indeed the French nation as a whole -throughout the ages.

The philosophy of the swashbuckling Musketeers had given way to anglo-saxon discipine under the weight of professionalism, said Pierre Villepreux, the former French coach.

His concerns are widely shared although not often aired publicly in France.

What the French papers say

“The same as Cardiff” is the headline in L’Equipe after France named an unchanged team to face England after the quarter-final victory over New Zealand, but those words could also apply to the mood within the camp.

The mood in the French press this week has been one of grim determination, a sense that the team can not afford to allow the euphoria of victory over the All Blacks to effect their preparations, and the players are repeating the mantra.