KEY POINTS:
A lot of the questions to the six All Blacks rolled out today went something like this: "What did you think of Scotland... Wales... South Africa etc."
Most of the answers came back as such: "I didn't see it sorry... I only saw 10 minutes etc."
Chris Masoe probably wishes he'd stuck to that pattern when he got asked what he thought of the Portuguese ahead of this weekend's slaughter, er, match.
"I've seen those Portugal boys and they're quite huge. They're big boys."
Normally he would have expected such a trite answer to sail on through to the keeper, so to speak. But he didn't reckon on an Irishman with a headband that gave him the look of a Corsican independence fighter. This fellow was not prepared to let what he considered a little porky to pass by.
"They're the lightest team in the competition," he lilted.
"Definitely, they'll bring their physical side to us," Masoe sailed on, either pretending not to hear the Irishman, or just ignoring him altogether.
"They ARE the lightest team in the competition," the Irishman continued, more forcefully.
Suddenly Masoe was no doubt cursing himself for not taking the "I didn't see the game" route.
"I didn't know that, thanks," he said. "I know it now, thank you."
It was an amusing aside in what promises to be a long week. And you can hardly blame Masoe for trying to generate a bit of interest in what everyone knows will be a blow-out.
There is, after all, only so many ways you can say that you can only worry about your own game and not think about the opposition.
Especially now we know they're the lightest team in the tournament.
