Former England wing Chris Ashton believes that all-northern hemisphere semi-finals are a genuine possibility this weekend.
The quarter-finals pit the two hemispheres against each other as Wales, Ireland, England and France take on Argentina, New Zealand, Fiji and South Africa respectively.
For the first time ever, the four pools were topped by the Six Nations outfits, suggesting that the balance of power has well and truly shifted.
They could all make it into the last-four but, equally, the majority of the ties are likely to be tightly contested.
Development in the north
“It would be great,” Ashton said. “That’s what I’d like to see anyway. It would be amazing really, just to show how far we’ve come in the last three or four years, especially France and Ireland leading the way.
“We all know that England and Wales have had an easier side of the draw, but if all four to get through, it’s just great for northern hemisphere rugby. We have obviously learned a lot from the southern hemisphere and taken it one step [at a time].
“Especially France and Ireland, the way that France have turned around the past two or three years, and then Ireland under Andy Farrell just taking it on more and being world number one. It would be good to see and I really do think it’s possible.”
Ashton also cast an eye over his former side England, who go into their clash with Fiji as favourites, despite succumbing to the Pacific Islanders when they last met in a World Cup warm-up in August.
Owen Farrell starts at fly-half for the Red Rose, with Steve Borthwick ditching the 10-12 playmaking axis that was preferred by previous boss Eddie Jones.
And the ex-wing believes that it is the correct decision to only have one of Farrell or George Ford in the starting XV for the time being.
“We’ve probably seen that England can’t play both, it doesn’t really lend itself to working necessarily right now. Owen is captain and they both lead their teams at home in England with them being in charge,” he said.
“They get on really well, so I don’t think there’s anything in between them, they just have different styles. With Owen being captain and being so influential in English rugby for so long, I think he’s just the go-to for Steve [Borthwick]. Steve’s talking very highly about Owen and the way he thinks and the how he leads the team and how he trains.”
Improving from Samoa game
England ended the pool stage with a perfect four from four, but their last encounter saw them put in an inauspicious display against Samoa.
They need a vast improvement against Fiji, but Ashton is not reading too much into that performance.
“Samoa game is probably a difficult one to judge on, just because England weren’t great. It looked like everybody had it in their minds that they know they’d qualified and that Fiji was coming up. I wouldn’t be surprised that they had been doing a little bit of prep for Fiji too,” he added.
“Samoa were great. They got ahead, got their noses in front, so good on them, but definitely the focus is on this week and Fiji, so it’s hard to take anything from the Samoa game.
“The advantage of England is that they’ve been able to have a break and see their families, go off and spend a couple of days on holiday and just relax and have some down time, whereas the Fiji boys have been away for ages.
“It’s tough. Then you hear about the emotion and the stuff that’s coming out of the camp, so it’s a hard place for those boys to be, but they’re in a quarter-final, so if they need any motivation just to keep going, that will be it.”
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