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Wellington - In one of rugby's most famous alliterations, the words Wellington and wind usually appear in the same sentence.
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New Zealand's harbour capital rivals Chicago for the sobriquet the Windy City and its omnipresent wind is set to test teams at the Rugby World Cup, beginning on Sunday with South Africa and Wales.
The strongest gusts recorded in Wellington measured 248km/h and buffeted wind gauges near the brow of Hawkins Hill twice, in 1959 and 1962. On average, Wellington experiences wind gusts of more than 60km/h on 173 days every year and has a mean annual wind speed of 22km/h.
It's a factor all teams which play at the Wellington Regional Stadium will have to consider. The Springboks say they already have.
Wellington's central business district stands on a narrow strip of reclaimed land between steep hills and a natural harbour. It's tall buildings create man-made canyons down which the wind whistles with prodigious strength.
At one time, on particularly windy days city workers would string ropes along sidewalks to give pedestrians something to cling to against the ferocity of the wind.
The Wellington stadium is in the same area and feels the wind with similar force. The prevailing wind in Wellington is from the north and yields only occasionally to the more feared southerly "buster".
The stadium itself is a hollow circle, known to locals as "the cake tin". The wind swoops over its cantilevered roofs and dives down into the stadium, never blowing from one direction but swirling. The flags atop the goalposts have shown it at times to be blowing from one direction at one end of the field and from the opposite direction at the other.
Even local players who play regularly at the stadium - the Super Rugby home of the Hurricanes - seldom claim to know its moods.
The Springboks have more knowledge of the stadium than Wales because they play there more often, for their Super Rugby teams and in Tri-Nations Tests. Even then, 107-Test veteran lock Victory Matfield would not presume to be an expert.
"It is a very difficult stadium with the wind, especially for the kickers, and even if you know it, it is very hard to get used to it," he said.
"It is difficult to say that we will have an advantage even though we play here more than them with the Super Rugby and Tri-Nations."
The forecast for Sunday is for both rain and wind and flyhalf Butch James, who may come off the bench for the Springboks, knows which he prefers.
"We'd rather play in the rain," he said. "The stadium is a bit more closed in than, say, out in the street. But it does swirl around and it is pretty tough.
"It's meant to be picking up, the wind, so we'll see how it goes."
South Africa assistant coach Dick Muir said the Springboks had factored the wind into their match preparation.
"The kicking game is always affected by the wind," he said. "The ground where we train is elevated and there is a lot of wind around there. You don't quite get the practice that you want.
"We practiced our kicking game on Monday and we did what we had to. But the wind is getting stronger and we're certainly expecting it to swirl."
The Springboks huddle during a practice session in Wellington (AP)
