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The Rugby World Cup is well and truly underway in France, with top favourites laying down their claims early — while others will need to go back to the drawing board before the next round of fixtures.
The Wallabies got their campaign underway with a confident victory over a potential banana-skin side, Georgia, but how did the rest of the teams get on?
Here's your Rugby World Cup week one round-up.
France are the real deal to take charge of Pool A
The opening game of the tournament between the hosts France and the All Blacks had been circled as one to keep an eye on from the moment the draw came out — and it did not disappoint.
From the raucous atmosphere in the Stade de France stands, to the 30 degrees Celsius sweltering heat and the pulsating contest on the pitch, the opening game served up everything you could have possibly wanted and more.
The All Blacks punctured the jovial atmosphere briefly with their electric start and sensational opening score and threatened to grind down a French side that looked nervy and too keen to kick possession away in the opening half of the match, staying in touch with gritty defence and Thomas Ramos's penalty-kicking prowess.
But after that brief hiccup, it was very much a French party — culminating in the joyous, free-flowing play that led to the final try scored by Melvyn Jaminet.
"It was a battle," New Zealand skipper Ardie Savea said.
"It was going back and forth, back and forth and in that last 20 [minutes] our discipline let us down and we weren't clinical enough in our own half and they punished us."
The win was not enough for France to end the first round of matches on top of Pool A — Italy's predictable, if not hard-earned, 52-8 bonus-point thrashing of Namibia saw the Azzurri take that honour — but it certainly puts them in pole position to progress as pool winners.
England's stunning performance after 'rocky' build-up
There had been a lot of talk about England coming into this tournament — and none of it was good.
A fourth-place finish in the Six Nations. Defeats against Wales, Ireland and, for the first time, to Fiji in the pre-tournament build-ups. Starting fly half Owen Farrell banned for four games after (another) reckless high tackle, and the only specialist number eight Billy Vunipola joining him with three games on the sideline for the same offence.
Under coach Steve Borthwick — who took over from Eddie Jones — England had just three wins from eight matches and a frankly alarmingly predictable style of kick-chasing and erratic disciplinary issues.
So a first-up match against Argentina looked not like the exciting pool decider that it could have been, but a massacre waiting to happen.
That seemed to be confirmed when Tom Curry was sent off for colliding with the head of Juan Cruz Mallía in just the third minute of the game.
Enter England's forgotten man, George Ford, who orchestrated what might have been the team's best-ever performance at a World Cup given the circumstances.
Ford kicked six penalties and, in a stunning 10-minute period before half-time, three drop goals, to lead England to a 27-10 victory built off a battling performance from the pack and a disjointed, error-strewn display from Argentina.
"They were better than us in every way," Marcos Kermer told World Rugby in the mixed zone after the match.
"In all aspects of the game, they pushed further, they played the game they wanted to play."
Ford, who scored all of England's points, said there was still work to do.
"We've had a bit of a rocky build-up to this World Cup but the last 10 days there's been a bit of a different feel about the place," Ford said.
"Winning the first game is always a good thing against a quality team like Argentina. But again, it's only the first game.
"We've got some tough games to come and we're in a position where we want to keep improving."
Next up for England — who will still be without Farrell and Vunipola — are Japan, who eventually prevailed 42-12 against tournament debutants Chile to claim a bonus-point victory and top spot in the Pool D.
Springboks belt brave Scotland, Ireland ease into Romania hammering
The Pool of Death, Pool B, started exactly how most expected it would.
Tournament favourites Ireland absolutely belted Romania 82-8 — even if they did concede the first try of the match — to top the pool.
The strong Ireland team, led by Jonathan Sexton — playing for the first time in six months after a spell of injuries — hit back after Georgia's try and utterly dominated to claim a bonus point win.
It was Ireland's easiest game on paper so to get through it with no major injury concerns would have been a relief.
The tougher tests are to come, as evidenced by South Africa's hard-fought 18-3 win over the luckless Scotland, who despite having their strongest team in a generation must continue to curse their luck that saw them pitted in such an awful pool and to have to start against such awful opponents in the Springboks.
In a good old-fashioned slugfest, Scotland the Brave quickly became Scotland the Bruised as the impossibly big Boks smashed into the line again and again.
Scotland, of course, gave as good as they got, stealing two scrums against the head, which surely angered that South African pack no end.
South Africa kept things tight and met Scotland's sporadic attacks with such furious resistance that there was an inevitability about the result even with the scores so tight at half-time.
Scotland's 14-day break before the next match, with Tonga, will be much needed.
Wallabies watch as 'fortunate' Wales hang on to defeat Fiji
Fiji will enter the second week of the tournament wondering how they lost against Wales in a thrilling finale to the opening weekend of action.
The flying Fijians had most of the ball, most of the attacking interest and most of the crowd in their corner.
By the end of the match, Wales had made 248 tackles compared to Fiji's 70.
But the most important stat was the final score, as Wales prevailed 32-26, with Fiji cursing Semi Radradra's dropped pass with the line at his mercy in injury time.
"It's a tough one. We are really disappointed because we put a massive amount of effort in," Fiji skipper Waisea Nayacalevu said.
"That last pass, man … it's quite hard but we have got to learn from that and move on to next week."
Wales should feel fortunate that their repeated infringements in the final quarter did not result in more than just the one yellow card issued to Corey Domachowski — especially as Fiji saw yellow moments earlier after far fewer — if any — warnings for Lekima Tagitagivalu.
"If you think we were fortunate, that's fine," Wales coach Warren Gatland said in his media conference.
It wasn't just that reporter.
Former England player Ugo Monye wrote a since-deleted post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he was "Gutted for Fiji" and that "at times the game didn't feel fair [or] equal", while former Olympic-gold-medal-winning Fiji Sevens coach Ben Ryan said "grey officiating killed us".
Ryan added that Fiji "will beat the Aussies", who are next up on Monday, September 17 (AEST).
French major event organisation once again called into question
One minor hiccup for what has otherwise been a joyful weekend of rugby was crowd problems for England's match against Argentina in Marseilles.
Organisers were forced to apologise for chaotic scenes outside the Stade Velodrome as hundreds of supporters missed the start of the match amid lengthy queues and crushes.
"We would like to apologise to fans impacted by yesterday's access challenges," World Rugby said in a statement.
"The France 2023 Organising Committee can confirm that it is taking steps to improve access to Stade de Marseilles."
Given the very recent issues of major events hosted in France, notably the crush outside the Champions League final of 2022 and subsequent blaming of Liverpool fans for issues that were later revealed to have been created by poor organisation, it was a headache organisers did not want to repeat.
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