KEY POINTS:
Chris Latham's move to Europe is looking all but inevitable. Ulster and Bristol are leading the charge to sign one of the world's best fullbacks and, with his ARU contract due to expire and a guaranteed $750,000-a-year from a European club, it seems unlikely Latham will sign the two-year extension to stay in Australia.
Even his Queensland Reds team-mates at Ballymore seemed resigned to losing him.
"Europe and Japan throw a lot of money and if you have a young family you've got to provide for them," said Reds captain John Roe.
Toutai Kefu, a member of the 1999 World Cup-winning team, has waded into the debate by saying the ARU should be offering Latham the sort of $1 million-a-year-deal that kept Lote Tuqiri from returning to the NRL.
On top of all that, Latham has done that most un-Australian of things. He's defended the English.
Many have criticised England for their dour, negative game but Latham sees England as playing smart.
"They played the perfect game to win," said the 32-year-old, whose face so expressively told the tale of that quarter-final defeat to the English. "Their tactic was to go there and disrupt our game and if it comes off and they win, then - bloody hell - you can't begrudge that.
"Because they've achieved what they wanted to do on the day and it's worked and they've won.
"You've got to be good enough and smart enough to adapt to that, and unfortunately there were teams that couldn't do that," he said, bringing the All Blacks defeat by France into the conversation.
"If you look at New Zealand on paper and their team, on form, on skill level, they should have won that game. But to the French credit, their game plan was far better than New Zealand's and they executed it.
"The New Zealand public and the New Zealand press have always had this stigma about choking at World Cups. I certainly don't think they choked. Like us, they were just beaten by a team that played a better game plan to win."
There was little charity for the All Blacks on this side of the ditch. The Australian press chose to soften the blow of the Wallabies defeat with the schadenfreude of seeing New Zealand also take an early exit. And Latham's sympathy seems somewhat barbed.
"For about a year leading into the World Cup, it was all about New Zealand and how there wasn't a team on God's earth that could even go close to beating them.
"As a team you take confidence out of that. To be knocked out fairly quickly would be quite shattering. As a player I know it's going to take a long time to heal the wounds."
Latham intends to be available for selection for the 2011 World Cup, making a point that none of his injuries have been degenerative. He also expects that in four years, the All Blacks way of playing rugby will not have changed.
"New Zealand play an exciting and expansive brand of rugby. They can be criticised for imploding at times. Nine times out of 10 things come off for the All Blacks because that's their style and that's their given gift in rugby.
"I think sometimes people can be a little bit harsh."
Latham also fended off accusations that the World Cup was a "borefest" - too many one-sided matches; too many penalties; not enough tries.
"I don't know why we are so paranoid or why we have to analyse and look so deep into things. I mean this is what makes rugby, rugby.
"Sometimes it's boring and sometimes it's not. Fair enough, we're trying to make the perfect game and I'm all for that, but sometimes we analyse things a little too much."
For once, this is not a player who wants to single out the media. Instead he implicates the marketing man for tinkering with the game.
"In New Zealand, rugby is a major code; it sells itself. Here, we have other codes to compete with. There is obviously a commercial part of the game that needs to be satisfied, but it becomes frustrating when there's always these rule changes.
"Maybe I'm a little bit pig-headed in thinking that this game is the best game on earth and I don't see why we have to change it for anyone."
