Imagine a Conor Murray or James Ryan obliged to walk through pre-match drinkers outside pubs in Beggars Bush

Word has reached us that Chiba’s stock isn’t exactly high back home.

Concerns have been raised that the boys here are in quarantine, safely away from any World Cup giddiness in a spot which has been compared to the industrial estate hotel in Bordeaux that their predecessors had to call home and which came to symbolise the soulless performances posted at the 2007 World Cup.