A Rugby World Cup featuring upset results pleases many, but not the International Rugby Board (IRB). The IRB likes to hide behind the profitability of the Rugby World Cup, stating that the funds raised from it go towards helping to grow the game globally. What they don’t like to see is any sign of the boat rocking.
This year’s Rugby World Cup has been notable for two things: the quality of the rugby played by Argentina, Fiji and Tonga and the desperately poor showing of the Six Nations teams. The IRB has a chance to change the game for the better right now by supporting the successful unions at Rugby World Cup 2007 in the years between now and New Zealand 2011. It will not happen.
Fiji and Tonga are too remote and lack the kind of infrastructure that might attract sponsors and put bums on seats. In addition they play a kind of game, based upon physical intimidation, that is disliked in the corridors of power.
Argentina is a different story. It is a developed world country that has recovered remarkably from an economic meltdown five years ago. The only problem is that the post-inflationary era has left the Argentinian Rugby Union (UAR) behind.
Several years ago a player crippled in a scrum took the UAR to court and won $3-million in damages. The UAR did not have that kind of money, being the last of the true amateurs among the major rugby nations.
It is not widely known that the new scrum laws were developed with the bankruptcy of the UAR in mind. Syd Millar, the head of the IRB and a former prop forward for Ireland and the British Lions, set up the technical committee that tried to eradicate the ”hit” from the scrum. Millar successfully argued that no union could afford to go through the same issues as the UAR.
Sadly the bankruptcy of the UAR coincided with the best team Argentina has ever produced. When the Sanzar (South Africa New Zealand Australia Rugby) deal was renegotiated in 2005, there was an opportunity to include Argentina and expand the Tri-Nations. Money was the sticking point: Argentina didn’t have any, so the Sanzar unions opted instead to add an extra round to the existing Tri-Nations.
The IRB could solve the issue this weekend. It could pay for Argentina to play in a new Four Nations tournament. The money would not go to the UAR, which has a suspicious record of ”losing” official funding, but to Sanzar to hold and allocate to the relevant travel and accommodation streams.
There is the possibility also, of course, that Argentina could join the Six Nations, bearing in mind that most of their players are professionals in the French, Irish and British leagues. It wouldn’t need to become the Seven Nations, however.
Instead the IRB could create a second-tier competition involving Georgia, Romania, Spain and Portugal. A fifth team would be the one finishing last in that year’s Six Nations. Promotion and relegation would give added lustre to a venerable competition.
It goes without saying that the IRB would sneer derisively at such radical ideas.
Rather keep the cash cows and vested interests firmly in place and pat the unfashionable unions on the head every four years, marvelling at their ability to be competitive despite everything.
No one is blameless. How can it be, for instance, that South Africa play Australia as often as four times a year, yet they have not played a Test match against Fiji since 1996? When the predictably easy Springbok victory is concluded in Marseilles on Saturday, that fact will be conveniently forgotten.
As for Tonga, what happened to the team of deadbeats who lost by 100 points to England in 1999? Well, for once they were able to pick a few of their stars from the Super 14 and European leagues. Usually those players are contractually obliged not to represent their country, for fear of injury.
Let us not forget that Jonah Lomu left Tonga for New Zealand at the age of 16 only after talent scouts spotted his astonishing rugby talent. In the new age of the IRB, such rapacity would not be allowed. Tonga and Fiji would have their designated seats at rugby’s top table and New Zealand would revert to looking like it did 20 years ago, instead of the Pacific Islands all stars XV that it is today.
If that makes you feel sorry for the All Blacks, then prepare to shed tears for Graham Henry’s men on Saturday when they bow out of the World Cup. France might have frozen in their opening game against Argentina, but they will play like men possessed at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
Argentina will not need to dig as deep to overcome Scotland and it then only remains to be seen whether the Pumas have anything left in the tank for the semifinal against the Springboks. It would be embarrassing for South Africa to fall at the penultimate hurdle, but not half as embarrassing as it would be for the IRB in the event that Argentina end up as world champions.