It took 16 days, but finally the 2003 Rugby World Cup came to life on Sunday, with two games worthy of a tournament that was meant to identify the world’s best side, but had begun to seem more like the ritual humiliation of some of the world’s worst. Ireland beat Argentina 16-15 and England got the fright of their lives before downing Samoa 35-22.
Every four years the two sides that lost on Sunday are damned with faint praise and promised that they will one day be invited to dine at the main table of international rugby. Then they are ignored until the next World Cup. The time has come for the IRB to be given a sharp kick up the backside.
If they are serious about expanding the number of teams that can play the game to a serious standard, Argentina and Samoa have to be helped up the ladder. Clearly both teams have the playing resources; what they lack is regular international exposure.
Some years ago South Africa signed a deal to play the Pumas twice a year, home and away. The collapse of Argentina’s economy provided a handy excuse for not playing in Buenos Aires, but at least we have played them here on a regular basis. The idea was to bring them up to Tri-Nations standard and expand the tournament to four teams, but it seems that the political will simply does not exist to make it happen.
And now the opportunity may have gone forever, because Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp deal that has bankrolled southern hemisphere rugby for the last eight years ends in 2005. The gravy train is about to be derailed just as the Pumas are ready to hop aboard.
In the case of Samoa things are a little different. The moneymen will tell you that it is patent madness to push them into the Tri-Nations, mainly because it’s too expensive to move a temporary broadcasting infrastructure to Apia.
And, just as tickets for the soccer World Cup are likely to be priced way over the heads of local South African supporters, a full house for Samoa v New Zealand in Apia wouldn’t raise enough cash to cover the costs of flying the overseas based Samoan players in for the match.
One of the solutions already mooted is for Samoa to play their home games in Auckland, where many of the players were born and brought up. But there’s an interesting demographic change going on right now.
Samoan, Fijian and Tongan players who are good enough, young enough, are of course being snapped up by the All Blacks and the Wallabies. But that still leaves a large number of itinerant rugby players from the islands that want to earn a living from the game. A number find employment on the IRB World Sevens tour, but many more are working as professional rugby players in Britain, in both the union and league versions of the game.
So, if the Tri-Nations is, a) too strong (debateable) and, b) too expensive for a Samoan presence, what about letting them into the Six Nations? There’s an idea that would send shock waves through the corridors of power, but is it really too difficult to conceive that a team capable of (almost) humbling the best team in the world, could strengthen the game’s oldest international tournament?
Let them play their home games away from the main rugby centres, give them a portion of the gate money for expenses and development and watch them give every team bar England and France a hiding on a regular basis. Maybe it’s the thought of that which makes the IRB mutter platitudes every four years. After all, we don’t want to upset the traditional applecart, do we?