European hopes will ultimately go south

THERE’S a nastily parochial feeling in this part of the world that none of the northern hemisphere nations can manage to win the three games on the trot that would allow them to take home the big chocolate box.

So if such blinkered thinking is accurate, the 2011 World champions will emerge out of tomorrow’s quarter-finals.

As gutsy as they are and despite their improvement over recent years, it won’t be Argentina. The All Blacks would have to lose a lot more personnel than just Dan Carter to see defeat by the Pumas as a credible option.