Paul Thomas: Obsession with winning Cup the curse of rugby

Are we witnessing the revenge of the gin-swilling old farts? Back in the days when rugby was an amateur sport, British administrators (in our collective imagination Colonel Blimp types with double-barrelled names who regarded New Zealanders as semi-house-trained colonials) were implacably opposed to the concept of a World Cup.

Their primary objection was that it would lead inexorably to professionalism by increasing the player load beyond what was reasonable to expect of amateurs and by generating revenue of which the players would demand a share. Their analysis was probably correct, although as it happened the abandonment of amateurism was precipitated by outside forces.

Not sharing their conviction that the future of civilisation was dependent on rugby remaining amateur, we pressed on regardless with the support of our like-minded friends across the Tasman. The concept was duly embraced and the old farts retired to their gentlemen's clubs to pickle themselves in Tanqueray.

Twenty years on, that blithe certainty smacks of hubris. The New Zealand Rugby Union's (NZRU) messy spat with News Ltd, one of its two key financial backers, over plans to withdraw 22 top players from half of next year's Super 14 is further evidence that the rugby landscape is now dominated - and disfigured - by the World Cup.

The international game, rugby's shop window and its competitive advantage over other oval-ball codes, is being steadily downgraded as teams either build towards or mark time until the next World Cup. Knowingly or not, rugby is following the soccer model, a development that has grave implications for New Zealand.

It plays into the hands of wealthy English and French clubs hellbent on emulating the likes of Manchester United and Real Madrid, globally minded businesses whose brand-power derives largely from their stables of international stars. How long will it be before Biarritz or Toulouse makes Dan Carter an offer he simply can't refuse?

The NZRU-News imbroglio is a curious affair on a number of counts. For the supplier (the NZRU) not to inform the customer (News) of its intention to water down a product for which the customer pays a handsome price was an extraordinary oversight, but it can't have come as a bolt from the blue.

The move had been heavily flagged and widely reported. Doesn't anyone at News bother keeping an eye on its half-billion dollar investment? Didn't anyone at News' New Zealand subsidiary Sky TV bother putting through a call to head office?

Neither of those scenarios is believable. But if News knew what was afoot, why did it wait until it was formally announced before screaming like a stuck pig? The obvious explanation is that it wanted to publicly humiliate the NZRU, an interpretation that fits with the barrage of scolding and disdainful comments from News' public affairs spokesman Greg Baxter.

NZRU chairman Jock Hobbs has dismissed Baxter's haughty lectures as being at odds with the tenor and content of his face-to-face meeting with News' chief operating officer. Does he believe Baxter is voicing a personal opinion? In my experience corporate spokespeople don't engage in headline-grabbing attacks without explicit authorisation from on high. Or if they do, they don't do it twice.

The NZRU is entitled to wonder why News hasn't complained about All Black coach Graham Henry's selection rotations, which could also have the effect of reducing the attractiveness of the product.

And as News (or at least Baxter) is demanding compensation for what it sees as a weakening of the product, why hasn't it demanded a refund from South Africa, given that country's negligible contribution to the Super 12/14? (No South African team has won the tournament in its 11-year history and invariably there's an untidy heap of abject outfits from the republic at the foot of the table.)

Perhaps News has sensed a growing confidence and independence of mind on the NZRU's part stemming from its recent run of success and is seizing the opportunity to remind everyone in Southern Hemisphere rugby that he who pays the piper calls the tune.

Perhaps it is dismayed that the World Cup, for which it doesn't have broadcasting rights in most rugby markets, is compromising the integrity and appeal of its competitions and therefore views the NZRU's decision to withdraw players from the Super 14 as unhelpful and disloyal.

But the World Cup's malign influence extends beyond causing commercial partners to fall out. Winning the World Cup has become an unhealthy obsession for the New Zealand rugby community from the NZRU down, to the extent that failing to win it will be a strategic disaster and the trigger for a prolonged bout of self-flagellation.

No other nation is as consistently good as we are but the World Cup is not about winning the vast majority of your games year in and year out. In effect, it's about winning three games in a fortnight once every four years.

We've placed all our eggs in this treacherous basket, even though the nature of the competition suits our rivals down to the ground by reducing our great strength - consistency - to near irrelevance and making the high expectations created by consistent success a burden and potential Achilles heel.