Rugby World Cup: The All-Blacks may be favourites, but with many of the Irish squad carrying Grand Slam and Heineken Cup credentials, the 2011 World Cup is far from a foregone conclusion, writes Gerry Thornley.
Juan Martin Hernandez is injured, the fading Matt Giteau is out of favour, Isa Nacewa is otherwise engaged, but most of the world’s great players and the world’s top 20 teams are congregating in one of rugby’s spiritual homes. It’s the World Cup alright.
It will be Breakfast AM rugby hereabouts, but New Zealanders know how to televise rugby matches. And, though the core European market will have to watch most of it over bacon and eggs, croissants and coffee, organisers claim that with China, Russia and the US all showing the tournament on terrestrial television, the tournament’s “potential cumulative reach” will be up to four billion people.
Pluck a figure out of the sky? It’s based on research in 201 countries, according to Mike Miller, chief executive of the IRB and managing director of Rugby World Cup Limited, and, hence he adamantly and good-naturedly maintains: “Yes, the rugby World Cup is the world’s third largest single sports event.”
After 2.1 million spectators attended the 48 matches held in France four years ago, the target for New Zealand is 1.2 million. This includes 95,000 visitors from overseas, and tournament organisers estimate that 8,000 have been sold in Ireland. Allowing for a fair chunk of ex-pats amongst the 30,000 tickets sold in Australia and elsewhere, Ireland mightn’t enjoy the extraordinary support they had in France, but it will still be well into five figures.
Miller is also adamant that “this World Cup will be a fantastic tournament. I’ve been down to New Zealand several times and the whole country is ready for it. The game is in good shape, although of course when the knockout stages come we have seen that teams play cup rugby. But everything is in place for a great tournament.” Let’s not mention the referees then.
The Tier 2 countries keep making progress but, of course, so too do the Tier 1 countries, and there’ll be a few cricket scores. Nonetheless, the IRB remains committed to maintaining a 20-team World Cup, according to Mark Egan, the IRB’s head of development and performance.
“These Tier 2 countries bring a huge amount to the World Cup, and a 16-team tournament, is that representing the global game that we all love? I don’t think so. So let’s hope they can front up and our funding helps them a lot, and they do get their own funding.”
The Georgians, as Ireland readily testify from that scare in Bordeaux four years ago, are the coming Tier 2 force. Drawn in Pool B along with Argentina, England and Scotland, rugby has become the number one sport in a country where wrestling has traditionally been the national sport.
In part, this is because they can regularly beat Russia (as they did in qualifying) and they also have a €25 million investment programme courtesy of a reclusive multi-millionaire benefactor who is building high performance facilities around the country. It’s possibly no harm either that the Georgian Prime Minister, Nikoloz Gilauri, studied in the University of Limerick for four years.
All things considered then, Ireland oughtn’t to be too discomfited by being grouped with the USA and Russia as they were by Namibia and Georgia four years ago. The nagging thought remains that the core of a high-quality team were at their peak in 2007 and their warm-up form was not compelling. However, most of the squad have a Grand Slam and a brace of Heineken Cups to their name. They are experienced campaigners who will assuredly be better primed for that pivotal second game with Australia.
Ireland will need to beat theWallabies (preferably) and Italy (which either way will probably be a last-day shoot-out of some description). Their likely quarter-final opponents will be the Springboks. Under the wily guidance of Declan Kidney, and with a shrewd back-up staff, you wouldn’t rule out the possibility of O’Driscoll and co finally and boldly going where no Irish team has gone before in the great man’s fourth and last World Cup.
But as the bookies odds indicate, a quarter-final would be about par, whereas failure to do so for the third time in four World Cups would be a huge disappointment.
Conventional wisdom understandably would have it that neither South Africa nor France could possibly win with Pieter de Villiers and Marc Lièvremont at the helm. But, whisper it quietly, could de Villiers have judged his venerable cast of winners from four years ago correctly by putting Bakkies Botha, Victor Matfield et al in camp, taking a couple of hits in the opening away legs of the Tri Nations before fronting up at home in beating a weakened All Blacks in their final game?
Their problem seems to concern the form of their World Cup winning captain of four years ago John Smit, as against Bismarck du Plessis. But as they showed in that win over the All Blacks, their immense physicality, fierce pride and will to win will stand to them in a brute of a group with Samoan and Welsh teams who are shaping up well. And they’ll make it difficult for any team to beat them.
Whisper it even more quietly, but could Lièvremont have got it right too? There remain curious picks in his squad, but provided he doesn’t revert to Damien Traille at fullback, or David Skrela at outhalf, they have a strong scrum, oodles of lineout options, power and athleticism aplenty in the backrow in the absence of an out-and-out seven, two classy scrumhalves, midfield penetration with Aurelien Rougerie and a Toulouse cutting edge.
But that’s if Lièvremont doesn’t tinker, and besides, as all World Cups have shown us, the better France play one week (perhaps finally scalping an English team heavy on bulk but light on skill in the quarter-finals) the less likely they are to do so a week later.
The Wallabies, as is their wont, are getting it right for a World Cup, though demoting Rocky Elsom as captain on the eve of the tournament was a shock. They’ve sorted out their scrum, have a big, well-balanced backrow, superbly inventive halves in Will Genia and Quade Cooper and a superb backline, full of strike moves and lethal in broken play or counter-attack, where Cooper’s shyness for physical contact is hidden to provide a creative spark.
But if Genia’s probing and sniping is closed off, as the All Blacks did in a possible dress rehearsal at Eden Park last month, the gifted but erratic Cooper can be too. Wet nights in New Zealand tend not to bring the best out of them either, and it does rain in New Zealand.
As in their only success in the inaugural 1987 event, the All Blacks have the advantage of playing at home. They also have the best prematch pageant, the world’s best two players in Dan Carter and Richie McCaw and, simply, the best team; a strong scrum, relentless in-yer-face defence, lethal off counter-attacks, quick taps or broken play, ruthlessly efficient at the breakdown, brilliant skill levels from one to 15 at the highest tempo, an offloading game and trademark support play seemingly learnt in infancy, a ridiculous array of gamebreakers in midfield with any combination of Ma’a Nonu, Sonny Bill Williams and Conrad Smith, and an array of finishers that would be the envy of any team.
If it’s Carter v Cooper in Eden Park on October 23rd, you can only see one winner, but Carter and McCaw have to stay fit, their lineout can be an Achilles heel under pressure and, of course, with each passing failure the monkey on their backs grows – witness the implosion of four years ago in Cardiff against France when they abandoned their high-tempo, wide game of the previous four years for pick-and-go.
The All Blacks should finally reach the Promised Land, but can a team and a country want something too much? They could cruise to victory, but having racked up the tries in the pool stages, there could be a one-score game in the final quarter of a quarter-final, semi-final or final.
