Andy Capostagno Rugby World Cup
A week has come and gone and the assessments of the fourth Rugby World Cup are still at wide variance. There are the familiar voices of the traditionalists maintaining that all the games (bar England versus Tonga when the bus was late) started on time, a total of 1,75- million people watched the 41 on offer and at the end of five-and-a-half weeks the best team, Australia, was identified.
There are the muckrakers who claim gross organisational incompetence on the part of Rugby World Cup Ltd, a complete lack of a marketing plan from the host unions, together with overpriced tickets and a substandard host broadcaster.
And then there are the critics who have hit the nail squarely on the head. This World Cup had its good points and its bad points, but the ugly truth is that as a shop window for the union code it was just plain disastrous. My mum, who does not know rugby from a big black dog, was enthralled by France/New Zealand, but five minutes into the final she suddenly remembered a very important pile of ironing that had to be done. Times that by several million more and you get the picture.
This World Cup was supposed to be an end of millennium grand celebration of the one oval-ball game that has the potential to be truthfully called a world sport.
Instead, and with sincere thanks to Romania, Spain and Uruguay for turning up, it revealed itself all over again to be a throwback to the days of the British empire when the dominions fell over themselves to participate in games that would allow them to see themselves as being more British than the British.
More than 100 countries are now affiliated to the International Rugby Board (IRB), but the power base is still the Five Nations, the Tri-Nations and a few South Sea islanders, most of whom live in New Zealand.
In the rest of the world rugby union is an elite sport played mostly by people with an affiliation of some kind to one of the aforementioned nations.
So what is the barrier to entry to the elite? If this World Cup has revealed one thing beyond all others it is simply that the laws of the game are a joke and as long as that remains the case peripheral nations, where the game is played for fun on a Saturday afternoon, will remain exactly that.
If soccer is a simple game for simple folk, the laws of rugby union would tax Albert Einstein, should he be dumb enough to want to sit the refereeing exams in the first place.
The IRB meets in a few weeks’ time to address the stark truth that supporters (and players) of the game often have no idea why the whistle has been blown. The tackle-ball law is the heart of the problem. When is a tackle a tackle in the first place? What constitutes immediate release of the ball by the ball carrier? When is a tackler attempting to release the tackled player and when is he not? Who is allowed to be off his feet and who on?
South Africa’s refereeing representatives to the IRB, Steve Strydom and Freek Burger, have pat answers for all these questions and if you play back any incident they will explain why the referee interpreted the law the way he did.
But that’s not the point. Rugby is supposed to be a game which flows, where the ball moves vast distances in the blink of an eye. Stop the game to explain why the whistle went and you’ve got American football.
The bottom line is that this World Cup will be remembered for one glorious match when the underdog kicked the overdog’s arse and after that the kicking of Gonzalo Quesada (Argentina’s winner of the Golden Boot), the five drop goals of Jannie de Beer against England, the drop goal of Stephen Larkham that ousted the Springboks and the defensive alignment of the Wallaby team which allowed just one try against them in six matches. Not much to show from 41 matches, is there?
Perhaps that is overstating the case. There were several matches that added lustre to the competition. South Africa against Scotland was a cracker, decided only when John Leslie was carried from the field. New Zealand against England had its moments and a marvellously partisan crowd.
Tonga/Italy was decided by a last-minute drop goal, Argentina/ Ireland by a glorious try from Diego Albanese. And the whole of Samoa did to Wales what Western Samoa had managed alone eight years previously.
There were enough pegs to hang a tournament on.
The task of the IRB is to make sure that in the 21st century rugby union reverts to what it was for most of the 20th – a rough, tough game, sometimes ugly, sometimes indescribably beautiful, with something in it for everyone.
Right now it is an unfathomable mess played by great athletes who deserve better from the lawmakers.
ENDS
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