The Rugby World Cup might make the world die of boredom, fear Andy Colquhoun in Edinburgh
For rugby, this is the best of times and the worst of times. Over the next few weeks an image of rude health will be projected across the sports pages as the Rugby World Cup perambulates towards its momentous conclusion. But it will mask a profound schizophrenia within the sport.
And no one, particularly not the International Rugby Board (IRB), can do much about it.
We’ll celebrate the skills and athleticism of our heroes and gasp at the animal power on display. And we will be dragged to the very edge of our seats by the unfolding dramas of the knockout stage.
But the final act is entirely predictable: the British queen will give the trophy to Taine Randell of New Zealand, Joost van der Westhuizen of South Africa, Martin Johnson of England, John Eales of Australia or Robert Howley of Wales.
For this is a World Cup in name only. The truth is that it is a pumped- up Tri- Nations, hidden inside a Five Nations, disguised as a world-class love-in for blazered old farts.
Which means that 62 nations who entered the World Cup never had a hope in hell of winning it. And they probably never will.
This is rugby’s schizophrenia. Professionalism has riven the game in two, so that while the IRB strings around the globe a curtain of affiliated unions (it is now more than 100), the playing power is distilled into fewer and fewer hands.
The maulings that will be handed out to the Spains and Uruguays, the Namibias and the Romanias over the next two weekends are the by-product of that change.
It would be bad enough putting Spanish amateurs in against South African amateurs, but when you put them in against South African professionals, it borders on the sadistic.
Spain are nonetheless delighted for the chance. Rugby is being shown live on Spanish television for the first time and even if they concede a century of points, the Spaniards are convinced that the fact that people are talking about the game in Spain is a step in the right direction.
But where is that path leading them? What does Spain want out of rugby? And what do they bring to the World Cup?
The answers, I would suggest, are nowhere, nothing and nothing again.
Without a professional league and professional players Spain can never hope to compete with the Italys and Canadas of the rugby-playing world, never mind the Springboks and All Blacks.
And a professional league, says representative Sergio Brosa, is beyond the dreams of avarice for the Spanish game.
The same story can be repeated wherever you go. Even here in Scotland there are only the two fully professional super- districts, and the club league – the league of the Heriots, Galas and Melroses – is still far from professionalised.
But in the understandable pursuit of the dollar and the ratings, the woodcutters are dragged from their forests, the barmen from their bars, the students from their bars and the salesmen from their showrooms to erect an artificial global backdrop for Rugby “World” Cup.
Rumour has it that the 2003 World Cup will comprise only 16 teams in four groups of four with the top two in each pool proceeding straight to the knockout stage. But even in four years that eight should be entirely predictable.
What the IRB needs to recognise is that it has two types of unions within its membership – the professional sharks and the amateur minnows.
And they deserve parallel world cups. Countries without their own fully-fledged professional structures should have their own William Webb Ellis Plate running alongside the main competition.
Scotland versus South Africa would then have been preceded by Spain versus Uruguay. The winners of the William Webb Ellis plate would then be excused, qualifying for the next main World Cup tournament.
There should also be a Six Nations second division in the northern hemisphere with a promotion and relegation play-off, with the bottom placed in the main championship. There is nothing like meaningful competition to concentrate the minds.
The Pacific Rim championship has found its own legs. Japan, Canada, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji and the United States are all firmly in the second rank of world rugby and now need regular visits from the big boys to fuel native enthusiasm for the game. If a sugar daddy could be found, a professional Pacific Super 12 would be a massive step forward.
Of course money is the important consideration. But the IRB will net something like R450 000-million from Cymru ’99, and they have already taken a step in the right direction by identifying countries for special development.
These should be given a working budget for the next four years to cover the costs of fulfilling a proper schedule of internationals and preparing in training camps. They should then be cut loose to fend for themselves.
It will be expensive, but the cost of keeping the coffers closed will not be a world in union, but a world dying of boredom.