Japan's rookie fly half Kosei Ono believes Stephen Larkham (AUS) doesn't have any weaknesses as he prepares to confront the Wallabies star playmaker in Lyon on Saturday.

Larkham - with 101 Tests for Australia under his belt - made his IRB Rugby World Cup debut in 1999 while the 20-year-old Ono has been thrust into the playmaker's role following a knee injury to Japan's first-choice fly half Eiji Ando.

Ono, who has only four international caps to his name following his debut in April, has been brought up to speed on Larkham's attributes through detailed video analysis, but the diminutive fly half scoffs at any suggestion of a chink in the veteran's armour.

"He doesn't have any (weaknesses), he is a pretty solid player," said Ono, who has lived in New Zealand since the age of three, but recently returned to Japan.

"It is a privilege to play against someone of that calibre but we are not looking at individual players, we are looking at the Australian team in general during our preparation."

Respect the kicker

Rugby fans are well known for their conviviality but RWC organisers are distributing a supporters' charter at match grounds asking for silence whenever there's a place kick.
"Please refrain from shouting and booing, stay as quiet as possible so that the kicker can concentrate," the charter asks.

Saved by the bell

Wallabies full back Chris Latham came to the rescue when wing Lote Tuqiri started straying into double entendre territory at their team announcement press conference in the Montpellier. Tuqiri said he could not wait for the competition to start. "I'm a footy player. I'm male, I like playing with things.”

Before the media could ask him to elaborate, the quick-thinking Latham reached under the table and grabbed a small bell kept handy for signalling a halt to long-winded speeches and gave Tuqiri a little warning tinkle.

Anyway back to Portugal. It rained the first night, heavy, and the locals said it broke the drought. The rain continued the next morning which started with a team meeting. Knuckles (John Connolly) started by reminding us that we were not on holiday and that this period was our last to do the hard work before the competition proper. The aim of the camp was to train as hard as posible without getting injured and do it in the heat. We then hit the gym, and cycled through seeing the physio, and doctor to make sure we weren't too stiff after the long flight. The afternoon was our own.

The team basically split in two, a golfing group and a fishing group. I was in the latter, and our group of 13 left at 12:30 for the Marina, which was the hub of Villamoura. After finding out the fishing charter company wouldn't take us out because apparently the swell was too big, Coops (Adam Ashley-Cooper), self-professed fisherman, preceeded to haggle with other companies in the Marina until he found one that would take us out.

Still raining we set off for a little known ship wreck 6 kms off the coast. The swell had died down considerably to less than 1 metre, and all was looking good until we anchored and set up our lines. Firstly the hooks were tiny, no bigger than a finger nail, which we baited with pippies. The guys realised we wouldn't be catching anything big today. Secondly we anchored over the wreck which was 45 metres down on the reef, but the bait wasn't getting within 40 metres of the wreck by the time the current had taken it, even with heavy sinkers.

We managed to catch 4 fish in about 2 hours, Ed (Fitzgerald) our physio caught a 20cm mackerel, Pink (Guy Sheperdson) caught a 10cm Brim, Holmesy (Greg Holmes) caught a 15 cm Brim, but the catch of the day was Gerrardo (Mark Gerrard). A Groper measuring no more than 5cm, obviously he didn't even realise he had one. But it wasn't about the fish, never is. Coopy was filthy, no one likes him anyway.