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Held at Church of the Ascension, The Avenue, Wembley from 8pm on Monday 5th October 2015.

With the country gripped by Rugby World Cup fever, I thought I’d look through the 20 nations participating and see if I could predict who would do well and how far each team would get. Now Rugby is not my forte, so these predictions might be controversial but here goes.  

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First of all 4 teams caught my eye who, though I don’t expect them to progress through to the knockout stages, might cause an upset or two:

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Japan: Bill Clement MBE

Bill, former chairman of the RSCDS, married Atsuko Mikami from Japan in 1986

USA: Butterscotch and Honey

The original tune for this dance is called McGinty's Meal and Ale and the USA's Fly Half is Alan McGinty.

Canada: Cape Breton Island  

Immediately to the north of Nova Scotia, this island in Canada still retains strong links with Scotland

Italy: The Wild Geese

 Named for the Irish Jacobite army that were exiled to Europe as part of the Treaty of Limerick in 1691, they saw service in Spain, France, Austria, Sweden, Poland and, in 1694, a regiment served in Milan, Italy. 

I predict that the following teams will reach the quarter finals before they get eliminated:

South Africa: Cape Town Wedding

Written by Tom Kerr when he got married to a South African and it includes  the symbolic movement of “The Knot”. Unfortunately the marriage didn’t last and Tom has now written a dance called Fare Thee Well which has a formation called “untying the Knot”.

Ireland: The Irish Rover

An obvious one this, the dance is named after it's original tune which is from an Irish folk song about a magnificent, though improbable, sailing ship that reaches an unfortunate end

France: Joie de Vivre

Another obvious answer and one that sums up Scottish Country Dancing perfectly.

Scotland: The New Scotland Strathspey

Not actually written for Scotland as it was written for Nova Scotia in Canada which was a Scottish Colony between 1929 and 1632 and from 1762 was colonised by many Gaelic families forced off their lands during the Scottish Clearances.

With the stakes rising, there will be two unlucky teams who will lose in the semi-finals:  

 Australia: A Flight to Melbourne

 The way the Australian Rugby team are playing at the moment, they won't be needing one of these for some time!

England: Alison Rose

Following their rapid elimination from the competition, I did think of choosing another dance but no one has written one called "Hopeless Bunch of Losers". There are some appropriate dances, such as "Follow me Home", "Farewell, Farewell" and even one called "Lets Shake Hands and Say Goodbye". However, we stayed with my original thought which was for the Rose which is the emblem of the England Rugby team.

So to the grand final, and I anticipate a closely fought contest but there will inevitably be one team who will come up just short, and I think that will be:

New Zealand: Pelorus Jack  

Written in celebration of a Risso's dolphin that was famous for meeting and escorting ships through a treacherous stretch of watch in Cook Strait in New Zealand.

And that leaves the team that I think will prevail and get to lift the Webb Ellis Cup on Saturday October 31^st 2015

Wales: The Black Mountain Reel

Named after a range of hills in the South and West of Wales

I then looked at my predictions and realised that each country made me think of a dance and, when danced in the above order, would make a pretty good programme.

So which dances will they be? See if your ideas are the same as mine and all will be revealed at our Autumn Social.