KEY POINTS:
Martin Snedden, the cricketer given charge of organising the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, must have the most exciting job in the country. He probably doesn't need any help here, but the subject has been nagging at me for a while now.
It strikes on sleepless
nights when the mind needs work and decides to draft a complete itinerary, matching teams with towns and the subcompetitions with Super 14 regions. It could be so good, so different from the standard sporting spectacle, so right for New Zealand and appealing for visitors and television viewers.
For a long time we were told we were too small to expect ever to stage an event of World Cup scale again. We didn't have the stadiums, accommodation, infrastructure. Then we got it.
The Rugby Union and the Government didn't have to promise much more than a 60,000-seat venue and have spent too much time since worrying about Eden Park or alternatives. Our scale is our attraction.
When I get excited about this tournament in New Zealand, it is not Eden Park I see, or Jade, Carisbrook or the Cake Tin. I see the field at Taupo or Te Kuiti, a festival in Alexandra, a parade in Hastings. I see schools, rugby clubs and receptions in places like Gisborne and Geraldine.
Imagine teams from Italy, Canada, Romania or Georgia based in smaller centres for the duration of their preparation and their matches, which could be played in the town or not too far away. The town would get to know the team and adopt it as its own. Supporters from its homeland could share the reception and the association might outlast the event.
If the itinerary is right, tourists in campervans could travel from one town to the next, seeing the country at grassroots level. And if the preliminary subcompetitions have teams in the right places, they could find familiar support from the ethnic components of our population.
Here is how it is shaping up in my nocturnal file: with the teams divided into five pools of four, the number would neatly match the division of the country into five Super 14 regions, Auckland, Waikato, Wellington, Canterbury and Otago.
Each pool will be seeded with one of the strongest five nations, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, France and probably England. Matching them to a region is the most interesting job.
I would put the Springboks and Samoa in the Auckland-based pool, with one of the British teams, probably Ireland, and a minnow. Base the Springboks at Albany, Samoa at Eden Park, Ireland and the minnow at Northland towns.
Let Wellington have the All Blacks, especially if it is not to get a semifinal, with maybe Wales and Fiji in the same pool. The All Blacks could play matches also in Napier and New Plymouth.
Send the Australians to Otago because they deserve it. They should bring the largest number of tourists so they could be based in Queenstown. Scotland should be in the same pool, based in Dunedin.
The Canterbury pool could contain England and maybe Italy, based in Nelson, and the Waikato would feature France and Tonga among others.
Possibly Snedden and his seven assistants, constituted as Rugby New Zealand 2011, are thinking this way. They have a guiding concept they call, "Stadium of Four Million People". But they have proposed reducing the number of teams from 20 to 16 and they are talking about inviting bids for just 11 match venues.
Other places may host teams but not matches, they say, and still other sites might get the right to erect big screens at their local stadium.
One thing they will not do is allow cities to contract directly with teams they want to host, as Marseilles did for the All Blacks this time.
In the cold light of day I am reminded the World Cup is owned by the dour International Rugby Board. The event is its main generator of revenue for the game in countries where it is not strong and the board takes an unhealthy interest in stadium advertising and television rights.
But what would be the point of showing England against the United States or Ireland v Romania in front of a few thousand spectators at Eden Park? The Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean this year was a sorry spectacle of empty seats.
The charm and strength of rugby in this country is its penetration to all corners. People who come here for the event and those who watch it on television anywhere in the world, might be enchanted by a glimpse of its culture at the grassroots. And the whole country could get a share of the attention, the revenue and the pleasure of being part of it.
Well, it gets me to sleep.
