London - England and South Africa rugby fans will down an estimated five million pints of beer on Saturday when they tune in to what England coach Clive Woodward calls a "tasty" match.
Springbok captain Corne Krige, a man who considered becoming a professional hunter before becoming a rugby player, has wound up the England fans by having the temerity to call England captain Martin Johnson "one of the dirtiest captains in world rugby".
David Beckham's England soccer side grabbed the headlines last week by holding fierce rivals Turkey to a draw in Istanbul to qualify for the 2004 European football championships. Continues Below ↓
Now it is the turn of England's rugby players to dominate the front and back pages as they tackle arch-rivals South Africa in Perth to decide who misses the dreaded New Zealand in the quarter-finals.
'I think we will see about five million extra pints sold'
And with the match kicking off at lunchtime in the United Kingdom, Mark Hastings of the British Beer and Pub Association, said supporters would be flocking to pubs up and down the country.
"Its one of the big matches of the World Cup and we all know that both English and South African rugby fans love their beer," Hastings told said. "I think we will see about five million extra pints sold because of it."
"Its going to be massive," predicted Michelle Daniel, manager of the Bok Bar in London's Covent Garden, where up to 700 English and South African fans will watch the match on giant screens.
"We have been telling everyone they have to get here two hours early."
Despite the sometimes brutal nature of the England-South Africa rivalry on the pitch, Daniel fears no animosity between her regulars.
'Our blood is green'
"We tend to get a 50-50 crowd for matches like this and there is a lot of mickey-taking that goes on but it's never nasty. It's a really friendly rivalry."
Fran Cotton, the great England and Lions prop, says rugby is nowhere near as bad when he won his 31 Test caps between 1970 and 1981 and players observed a strict law of silence on what happened on the pitch.
"There was far more foul play when I was in the game, mostly because the ref never saw it," he says.
"These days they have prying TV cameras and players get cited for violence."
However, that did not stop Springbok lock Jannes Labuschagne taking out England fly-half star Jonny Wilkinson the last time the two sides met when England ran up a record 53-3 win at Twickenham last November.
But it is a long way from the days when Willie John McBride took his British and Irish Lions touring party to South Africa when a call of "99" was the signal for every Lion to punch the nearest South African.
McBride's ploy put a stop to any Springbok thuggery.
Judging by reports from Johannesburg, rugby-mad South Africa is winding itself nicely up for Saturday's grudge match.
"Our blood is green" scribbled on a blackboard outside a church in a busy road in Johannesburg has become the unofficial war-cry.
"The Springboks have been written off by all but their most loyal followers," wrote Guy Hawthorne, columnist for This Day daily, who explained how he could not resist putting his money on the Boks.
"It is happening to me again. I get the feeling the Springboks are going to cause an upset, so much so that I am going to contact a local bookie and put my money where my mouth is," he wrote.
Judging by the hundreds of messages posted on an Internet message board for the Springboks, Hawthorne is not the only optimist.
Taryn Fleetwood, a South African working in London, wrote: "There would be nothing better than seeing you kick some English BUTT. Believe in yourselves... we do!"
The only daily not to devote blanket coverage to the match was the Sowetan, with a mainly black readership, which devoted the bulk of four pages of sport to soccer.
It did, however, publish one letter from a supporter: "I am a black South African who is very proud of the Springboks. I can assure you that they are going to win the World Cup."
South Africa beat England the last time they played in the World Cup in 1999 when fly-half Jannie de Beer destroyed England with five drop goals, five penalties and two conversions.
