Bluffers Guide To The Weekend: Rugby’s numbers game, why Spurs face a Kane-ing, and a dip into pool

Bluffer gives his guide to the weekend sport including Jose Mourinho’s not so special record at Newcastle, Harry Kane’s optimism for a goal and Lewis Hamilton’s attempt to emulate Ayrton Senna.

The Rugby World Cup is bubbling up nicely and creating talking points aplenty for the oval-ball bluffer. But there’s no doubting the focus this weekend: England v Wales, a fixture which - notwithstanding the awesomeness of the All Blacks and the uppity bouncebackability of the Wallabies - always carries the most emotional weight for the host nation.

Cultural, industrial and political history supply plenty of fuel to the rivalry, but in purely sporting terms the contest is evenly matched. Bluffers will know that England narrowly hold the edge in matches won (58 to Wales’ 56, with 12 draws) but each side has a thumping victory within the last decade to look back upon with glee: England’s 62-5 triumph in 2007, and Wales’s emphatic (and more recent) 30-3 win from two years ago.

Not hard to assess the relative value of those performances, but rugby bluffers will know that scoring systems have varied enormously down the years. In international matches a drop-goal has always been worth either three or four points and conversions and penalties either two or three. But in ever-more persistent pursuit of the running game, tries in international matches have been worth, since 1890, one point, then two, then three, four and nowadays five.

And a final numeral-related bluffing point: an England v Wales fixture in 1922 was the first international match in which the players wore numbered jerseys.

Back in the world of club rather than national loyalty, and the round rather than the oval ball, Jose Mourinho flies north with his Chelsea squad hoping to improve on their less-than-stellar start to the season. Since Newcastle, their hosts, are second from bottom (one of only four teams beneath Chelsea in the table) he may do so with uncharacteristic optimism.

But well-versed bluffers will know that this would be misplaced. Not only have Newcastle won their last three home League matches against Chelsea, but the Special One has an especially ghastly record at St James’s Park: he has never won there in five visits (two draws and three losses), a worse record than his only other winless top-flight venue, the Emirates, where he has registered but three draws.

Tottenham Hotspur have also made what can charitably be described as a stuttering start to the season, and their talismanic striker Harry Kane has yet to find the net in six appearances. They take on leaders Manchester City but encouragingly though, the last time he faced opponents who were top of the league (Chelsea, in January this year) he scored twice in a 5-3 win.

Bluffers may still feel that City’s players are the more likely scorers on this occasion. After all they have scored no fewer than 27 goals in their last eight meetings with Spurs, an average of 3.4 per game, and Sergio Aguero has a particular fondness for netting against the north Londoners, with 10 goals in seven games against them, his highest total against any club in the Premier League.

Far away from such concerns, in rural Japan, the magnificent Suzuka circuit hosts the Japanese Grand Prix, where Lewis Hamilton will be hoping to re-establish the momentum of his title challenge that was so rudely interrupted last weekend in Singapore.

High-speed bluffers will know that the stats are not in the Englishman’s favour. In fact last weekend’s victor, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, is by far the most successful of the current crop of drivers at Suzuka.

The German has won four times at Formula One’s only figure-of-eight track, also notching up four pole positions and six podium finishes. Don’t rule out his Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, who loves Suzuka as an old-fashioned driver’s track, and who achieved one of his most celebrated victories there in 2005, having started in 17th place on the grid.

Another contender - for a podium at least - is Formula One’s most consistent point-scorer in recent races: Red Bull’s young Russian Dani Kvyat, who has finished inside the top ten in the last five events.

There is crumb of comfort for Hamilton though. He may have failed in Singapore to match his hero Ayrton Senna’s record of eight consecutive pole positions, but victory in Suzuka would move him level with Senna’s career tally of 41 wins.

If all the glamour and historic clout of these high-profile events does not appeal, bluffers may turn their attention instead to the only World Cup in which the host nation has the right to field two teams – which of course they will know is the World Cup of Pool, currently being contested at the characterful York Hall in Bethnal Green in east London. Taking part in pursuit of the $250,000 prize pot are 32 teams of players representing teams from 31 countries including England – and England B.