After nearly a month and a half of a hopefully drug free world-class rugby, England and South Africa have emerged as two best teams who will battle it out at the International Stadium Yokohama in Yokohama on Saturday, Nov 2 to decide who will be crowned the 2019 World Cup champions.
Many rugby fans were expecting England to make it to the finals along with New Zealand who were the defending champions. England surprised a lot of people when they defeated the All Blacks in the semi-finals by putting on a show of what excellent game strategy and executive can do to the best of teams.
By defeating the All Blacks, they have automatically established themselves as the favourites against South Africa and have odds of 11/25 to emerge as winners with 888sport. South Africa go in with odds of 7/4 and in many ways will relish the fact that they are the underdogs as it means less pressure on the Springboks. The chances of a draw have odds of 22/1.
If England play as well as they did against the All Blacks, they should come out on top and win their second Rugby World Cup since their 2003 World Cup win. This will be just the second time in the last 12 years that England and South Africa will play each other in a Rugby World Cup final.
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Their coach Eddie Jones must take a lot of credit for the win against the All Blacks. Jones was at the ground watching both South Africa and Wales battle it out in the second semi-final and he was busy taking notes and masterminding another crafty game plan for England to take the title of being the best rugby team in the world – a goal that they have relentlessly worked out for the last 30 months.
England will not take the Springboks lightly as South Africa have already won two rugby World Cups and are very keen on lifting their third championship on Nov 2. They have a good chance of doing that as England have a number of key players who may not be fully fit for the final.
South Africa have an experienced bunch of players and it will be up to the key players to step up against England. The Springboks have one of the best kickers in the game in Handre Pollard who cannot afford to miss any chances against England. The key for them is going to be how well Faf de Klerk plays as he could very well turn out to be the difference between the two sides!
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