England and Italy shine as Newcastle proves to be a perfect World Cup host

So that was the opening weekend. Two of the five fixtures were held in Newcastle and it seems as if everyone in the city enjoyed it immensely – apart from Samoa, Scotland and whoever was running the sound system for the opening ceremony.

When silence descended inside St James’ Park on Saturday afternoon as the pre-tournament event was supposed to reach fever pitch, it helped that Kaiser Chiefs lead singer Ricky Wilson is not only an energetic frontman but also godson of the late Eddie Waring, the rugby league coach, commentator and TV presenter. Wilson must have thought “what would Uncle Eddie do?” He promptly channelled the spirit of the iconic voice of 1970s league and It’s a Knockout by charging up and down the touchline whipping the crowd up into party mode. It was fun while it lasted.

The tournament kicked off with hosts England taking on Samoa, whose most impressive performance was their Siva Tau war dance. From then on it went downhill rapidly for the supposed title contenders. Surely there is no way back for them in this tournament after their 60-6 defeat.

Anything that could go wrong for Samoa, did go wrong: dropped balls, missed tackles, video referee decisions, serious injuries, kick-outs on the full, drop-outs not going 10 metres and a sin bin. It was clear to see which of the teams had only started training together five days earlier and had not played since November 2019. The race to see who lasts longest out of Samoa’s beleaguered boss Matt Parish and Liz Truss is neck and pulsing neck.

The atmosphere inside the stadium ebbed and flowed. It was surprising how quiet 43,119 people could be at times, not helped by the opening ceremony debacle but also the interminably long halves. The first six minutes took