Part of the reason that I think New Zealand will take this world cup, is that I don't buy at all the stereotypes levelled at the separate countries. "England know how to win world-cups"... The class of 2003 know how to win world-cups, not the 2011 squad(barring johnson) Maybe there are a few relics left from 2003 - in the case of Shaw, quite literally an old relic - but by and large its a completely different squad and we're as much in the dark about how to win the world cup as anyone else.

Another typical saying is 'Ireland don't perform at worldcups'. I'd make pretty much the same comments about that. Its a new squad, which, shitty recent form notwithstanding, has confidence in itself to perform.

And finally I don't buy the stereotype that NZ are chokers. Only in the sense that there is national-expectation upon them, but otherwise theres many new, baggage-free players here who are hardly going to be suffering from flashbacks to 2007.

Also, nobody has anything  to lose playing NZ? ...the game? I see what people mean by this, but I still think teams, especially the top 10 teams, won't just resign themselves to their fate when playing NZ, and will know that the scoreboard won't budge an inch until they let someone score against them.