SOME events are a gift to a columnist, others are a curse. Somebody with a large blank space to fill every week doesn’t drop to his knees in thanks when Kilkenny win another All-Ireland hurling title, but the Rugby World Cup is a gift that keeps on giving.

New Zealand 26 Argentina 16: World champions New Zealand got the defence of their crown off to a winning start, but not until shaking off a terrible opening period in front of a Rugby World Cup record crowd at Wembley yesterday.

France 32 Italy 10: There were just four minutes to go on Saturday night when Frederic Michalak’s number came up.

Ireland’s World Cup squad checked into St George’s Park yesterday with having reported a clean bill of health and the prospect of welcoming Robbie Henshaw back to training ahead of next Sunday’s Pool D clash with Romania.

ANALYSIS of Ireland’s encouraging start to World Cup 2015 has to be put on temporary hold as a consequence of what Japan achieved in defeating the most experienced South African side ever fielded when the sides met at Brighton Community Stadium on Saturday.

Ireland 50 Canada 7: As opening weekends of a World Cup campaign go, Joe Schmidt will have been pretty satisfied as Ireland hit the road and headed for the English FA’s training base.

Perhaps a try in the final stages of the game would have been asking too much of Cian Healy but not rounding off his Ireland comeback with a score will not have dampened the loosehead prop’s delight at bringing a long, hard summer to a satisfactory conclusion.

Ayumu Goramaru survived one Japanese earthquake four weeks before his international debut ten years ago and another four days afterwards. It taught him all about seismic shifts and the Richter Scale which measured the first at 6.6, the second at 5.8.

A day from the heavens alright, if not from football’s gods. They’ve been especially stingy in 2015.

Is it possible that people have ran out of things to say about Dublin v Kerry? Even on Up for the Match, where the tolerance for cliché is high, they looked a touch jaded by it all.

One in three people born this year will develop dementia. The Alzheimer’s Research UK charity has warned of a “looming national health crisis” as the population ages.

And so, back to reality. Irish fans returned home yesterday, some bleary-eyes and a little bedraggled, but all filled with optimism after a thumping World Cup win against Canada.

‘Croydon-sur-Seine’, read the headlines.

As the television replays showed Thierry Henry’s handball on an endless loop, Howard Webb reached for his mobile phone.

Rob Kearney has revealed how the Ireland squad faced up to the ghosts of Ireland’s World Cup past to remind them of the dangers of underestimating so-called minnows.

A force of nature and a rising forward star with the speed of a wing. The praise heading Iain Henderson’s way is plentiful as he prepares to make his World Cup debut in Ireland’s second row alongside captain Paul O’Connell.

Kerry bid for their second back-to-back All-Ireland in less than a decade tomorrow at Croke Park, but you’d have got long odds on that in 2012 after they’d lost a quarter-final to Donegal. No-one was putting their hand up to replace Jack O’Connor, something Kerry GAA chairman Patrick O’Sullivan recognised better than most. So what’s changed? And how much longer can the Kingdom stay top of the tree

However one-sided this World Cup match-up between Ireland and Canada appears there will be plenty to occupy Joe Schmidt’s thoughts during today’s Pool D opening encounter.

England 35 Fiji 11: The trains weren’t running, the bars were overflowing, the stewards were next to useless and yet, at around 7pm yesterday evening, something rather strange happened in south-west London.

Long before he became an integral part of the Munster team, BJ Botha was part of a South African squad which captured the 2007 World Cup. So what was it like to claim world rugby’s greatest prize?