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MADRID - For the big guns of rugby the tournament has yet to begin but debutants Portugal already think of themselves as World Cup winners.
The team of amateurs from the rugby backwaters of the Iberian peninsula negotiated their way through a labyrinthine qualification procedure to become the final team to book their place in the sport's showpiece event thanks to a nail-biting 24-23 aggregate victory over Uruguay in March.
That historic win earned "Os Lobos" (the wolves) a place in Pool C alongside tournament favourites New Zealand and World Cup regulars Scotland, Italy and Romania.
"For us, just getting to the World Cup was a massive achievement, a dream come true," coach Tomaz Morais said.
"Our World Cup was to get here and now we want to come out of this with dignity, to hold our heads up high amongst the elite of world rugby.
"We are under no illusions as to the difficulty of our task, but we are approaching it with great enthusiasm and we will be giving everything we've got every minute of every game."
Morais, a former international centre who at 37 is one of the youngest coaches in the tournament, has no time for the suggestion that unfancied teams like Portugal have no place at the event.
"In rugby there is a big gap between the top four or five teams and everyone else," he said. "It is difficult enough for one of the second tier teams like Scotland, Wales or Argentina to win the competition let alone anyone else.
"But these sort of differences occur in almost every top sporting tournament. In the Olympics, for instance, there are runners and swimmers that take part that have no chance of winning gold and it is just the same in the rugby World Cup."
It is a measure of Portugal's achievement in getting to the tournament that only three members of the squad are professionals and they all play their rugby in France. The remaining 27 are amateurs who play in the unheralded Portuguese league.
"The fact that we are almost completely amateur makes a huge difference," said Morais.
"The other teams we come up against will all have much better physical conditioning because they can dedicate so much more time to muscular work and that enables them to play with greater intensity and consistency. The physical element is definitely a problem."
Morais singled out captain and number eight Vasco Uva, whose brother Goncalo and cousin Joao are also in the squad, pint-sized fullback Pedro Leal and former Munster centre Diogo Mateus as players likely to catch the eye in France.
Portugal's preparations for the biggest date in their rugby history have included a training camp on the Algarve and a series of warm-up games in England and Canada and against Japan in Italy where they were edged out 15-13.
Morais' only complaint is the scheduling. They kick off against Scotland, then face the mighty All Blacks and a highly physical Italian side before meeting Romania, their best hope of an upset.
"The real shame is that we play Romania last," he said. "We really wanted to play them second because it is the game we have targeted to win.
"The problem is that the previous three games will take a huge toll on the players both physically and mentally and that is going to make it very difficult."
- REUTERS
