The Rugby World Cup is here. And if the All Blacks are anything like their fans, they’ll crumble like a chicken stock cube.

In the land of the long white band of cotton wool, a petition is doing the rounds calling for a 10am start to the working day because of all the early morning matches the poor widdle Kiwi fans will have to endure.

First of all, harden up, candy bums. One of the joys of living in this part of the world is watching sport at uncivil hours and seeing if you can get through the day on little or no sleep. It toughens you up. It’s made us Aussies who we are today.

And secondly, what a con. I’ve taken a look at the schedule and only one of the All Blacks’ seven games comes anywhere working hours. That’ll be against Namibia at 7am next Friday so, you know, chuck a sickie if it’s all too hard.

All of the other games, barring the first one against Argentina at 4am on Monday — leaving plenty of time to watch it and get to work — will be played on the weekend.

So stop trying to pull the wool over our eyes, New Zealand, and get back to work.

On the field of play, the refs have been told to be on the lookout for any soccer style diving antics.

“There is a culture creeping in, I call it the football culture, of simulation,” warns the big cheese of World Cup referees, John Jeffrey.

Johhno’s on the case though and any player faking an injury will get 10 minutes in the sin bin for ‘ungentlemanly conduct’.

Meanwhile, the Poms are busy making their rugby guests feel welcome. A traffic warden was spotted slapping a ticket on the French team bus in Croydon for parking in a bus stop. Apparently buses can’t park in bus stops.

Perhaps it’s payback for comments made by the French media about their team’s World Cup base. French newspaper MetroNews dismissed Croydon as ‘sad’ and claimed it hadn’t made headlines since the 2011 riots. Yeah, well Croydon’s making all the headlines now.

The Australian cricket team left English soil with some pride intact, winning the final one-day international for a 3-2 series win. And here is the best ball of the series.

https://twitter.com/JackMendel4/status/643015183263248384

Spare a thought for English cricketer Zafar Ansari, who had four hours to enjoy the news of his first Test call-up for the upcoming series against Pakistan before dislocating his thumb in a county game. D’oh!

And let’s hope Chris Gayle doesn’t injure anything following his recent home renovations. He’s had a strip club installed. And he’s posted a picture in Instagram. Yep, he’s all class.

After months of speculation, Patriots star Tom Brady has been outed as a Donald Trump fan and is hoping the Golden Combover can take the US presidency.

“That would be great,” he says. “There’d be a putting green on the White House lawn, I’m sure of that.” Why stop there, Tom? Why not convert the White House into a Trump hotel?

One of Malcolm Turnbull’s first duties as Prime Minister this week was meeting with our women’s cricket team, the Southern Stars, following their Ashes victory.

Our new PM used the occasion to campaign for pay equality. “We need to continue pushing for the wage gap between men’s and women’s sports to be lowered,” he posted on Facebook.

Contrast that with Tony Abbott’s celebrated outing with a girls’ netball team, when he suggested ‘full body contact never hurt anyone’. Sport being his strong suit.

Have a good weekend, everyone. Don’t disturb any Kiwis.