"France has learnt from the example set by Australia in 2003 - that you need to work at getting crowds out for matches not involving the host or the biggest names." Huw Richards reports

Every time I get a twinge in my left knee, I think of the Stade Gerland.

This should not, sadly, be taken to indicate that your correspondent played either football or rugby to a sufficient standard to have performed on the same pitch that the All Blacks will grace on Saturday. But there are spacious playing fields on the site and it was on one of those, in a five-a-side game with other students from the Lyon Bleu school of languages on Bastille Day 2004, that the damage was done.

Injuries aside, this is a city that leaves warm memories - friendly, civilised, elegant and stylishly understated.

It has become, particularly with the rise and rise of Olympique Lyonnaise, more a football than a rugby city. The University club, twice champions of France in the 1930s, play near the top of the PRO 2 division and have played second fiddle in the region to first Grenoble and more recently Bourgoin.

The Gerland has hosted significant rugby before - it was used for some French national finals before it became a Paris fixture and there is a fine picture of Jean Prat leading out his great Lourdes team here in the 1950s.

Not being rugby heartland has not stopped Lyon enjoying its part in the tournament. As elsewhere, cultural events run alongside the matches.

The City Hall has a display of photographs of 40 French rugby greats - for my money the pick is of 1960s prop Amedee Domenech, cheeks puffed out as he charged into an understandably apprehensive looking group of tacklers.

And in the recreation areas on the banks of the Rhone that are one of the city's great glories is an exhibition of sculpture by Jean-Pierre Rives - even without the rugby connection, his name alone qualifies him to exhibit there - seven stylishly contorted confections of twisted metal of rising (or declining, according to the direction in which you are walking) size just north of the Guillotiere Bridge.

France has learnt from the example set by Australia in 2003 - that you need to work at getting crowds out for matches not involving the host or the biggest names. If you can get them to identify with one of the competing nations, so much the better.

Certainly it did no harm to Georgia's chances of decent support against Argentina that anything they did to slow the march of the Pumas could help France.
But there was more than just that to the roars of encouragement and changes of 'Georgie, Georgie' that echoed from all sides.

But as well as natural affinity with the underdog there was genuine appreciation for the sheer quality of Georgia's performance from the moment when they kicked off, reclaimed possession and drove towards the Argentinian line.

There was no fluke about their effort. They played with a controlled frenzy, matching the Argentinians physically and showing authentic technical quality, plus a hint of place, into the bargain.

Far from the somnolence reported from some matches at the weekend, this one had genuine excitement, stretching into the final moments as Argentina claimed a potentially vital bonus-point with their fourth try. Well might the Lyonnais be grateful to the Georgians.

It looked as though their reward for hosting three potential semi-finalists in a week might well be three sessions of one-way traffic.

Instead they saw a real match and, just possibly, a moment of history. If last Friday in Paris signalled the arrival of Argentina as a great rugby nation, Tuesday night in Lyon may just have been the moment when Georgia announced itself as a serious contender.