Rugby: Late night kickoffs for Cup playoffs

World Cup chief executive Martin Snedden (L) and Rugby World Cup managing director Mike Miller hold the Webb Ellis Cup. Photo / Richard Robinson

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Take a siesta or go easy on the giggle juice before the World Cup playoffs and final at Eden Park in 2011.

Organisers have decided to repeat the formula used in the last tournament in France with 9pm kickoffs for the semifinals and the Sunday crowning of the seventh champion at Labour weekend on October 23.

Quarter-finals in Christchurch and the bronze medal final at Eden Park have been tagged with an 8.30pm start, while tournament chief executive Martin Snedden said matches would start no later than 8.30pm during weekend pool matches and no later than 7.30pm during the week.

He indicated 10 of the 48 World Cup matches would be played in the afternoon and another 10 in the early evening but the rest would have later starts to connect with the television audiences in the Northern Hemisphere.

Details emerged yesterday in Auckland as World Cup officials revealed the All Blacks would play Tonga in the opening match on Friday, September 9, while 13 cities throughout New Zealand would host matches.

Those who applied to stage games but missed the cut were Tauranga, Queenstown and Mt Smart Stadium while Whangarei and Nelson were beneficiaries of the organisers' wish to spread the tournament nationwide.

The All Blacks start against Tonga, play an Asian qualifier which is likely to be Japan in Hamilton, then France at Eden Park before they complete their pool play against either the US or Canada in Wellington.

The hosts have a schedule of four tests in 24 days with all of the main seeds having a similar programme although the Springbok champions have been asked to play their pool games in 20 days.

Gaps given to the top teams for this World Cup are not repeated for sides who have yet to qualify.

Teams from Africa (possibly Namibia), Oceania (possibly Samoa), Asia (probably Japan) and several sides from Europe will not get nearly as much time for recuperation with 16-18 day campaigns.

The World Cup will run for 44 days and Snedden said there had been plenty of debate about the match to start the tournament. There had been a convention, broken in 1999 and 2007, for tournaments to start with a match involving the Webb Ellis Cup holder.

Organisers had considered that concept with ideas of the champion Springboks playing Fiji or Wales.

They also thought about sending the All Blacks out on to Eden Park against their pool qualifier France, which would have doubled as a repeat of the inaugural 1987 final. Instead, they settled on the All Blacks squaring off against Tonga.

"In the end, having worked through the issues we came back to a stadium for four-million-people philosophy," Snedden said.

"This is an extension of that. We are a small nation and many around the world may be questioning our hosting ability. We may be small but we have the strength of cultural diversity."

There were about 40,000 Tongans who lived in Auckland and that mix would add extra life to the September 9 start to the rugby festival.

There were 911 days until the start of the Cup, a figure Snedden hoped did not represent a gloomy outlook. He was not an economist nor could he predict what would happen between now and then on the global financial front.

"But I suspect Rugby World Cup could be the flagship of our recovery - that's my story and I'm sticking to it," Snedden said.

Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch will each host five matches, North Shore, Hamilton, New Plymouth, Rotorua and Dunedin will host three games, while the other venues - Whangarei, Nelson, Palmerston North, Napier and Invercargill - will stage two games each.

"While the number of match venues is more than Australia 2003 and France 2007 it reflects the organising committee's desire to take the tournament to the entire nation under its call to arms of a stadium of four million philosophy," RWC managing director Mike Miller said.

"RWCL fully supports this and the desire to ensure the tournament has a unique look and feel that fits in with the cultural background of the nation."