England will not be a contender unless they learn to infringe without the ref seeing it. They ought watch Richie McCaw to see how it's done!
A good performance by Ireland, for sure, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. As a one-off result, it's a morale lifting performance for the Irish and will stay in the record books as a win but in context of the tournament it only really sees them out of the pool stages - which would probably had happened anyway even if they'd lost to the Aussies. The games that matter are yet to come.
Personally speaking, I've been really impressed so far with the performance of the so-called minnows of the game. They've played with real passion and no shortage of talent only to be found out in the final 20 minutes of the game. Canada impressed me again this morning against France.
That said, I don't think any of the favourites have really clicked yet. Perhaps keeping the powder dry, fielding weakened line-ups and/or resting key players... who knows?... as I say, important matches yet to come.
Looking forward to France v All Blacks next Saturday though! France are the ABs bogey side, it's the 'choker' for the ABs, and your average AB fan is concerned about that game!