KEY POINTS:
Regardless of what transpires at Eden Park tonight, the rugby season will end not with a bang but a whimper.
The coronial inquiry into the World Cup train smash might provide entertainment for those of a ghoulish disposition, or possibly even a glimmer of enlightenment, but perhaps we should be looking at the bigger picture.
While not wanting to extrapolate wildly from one result, as certain British commentators are now doing with a viciousness and lack of discrimination that border on the unhinged, one can't ignore the nagging feeling that the All Blacks' quarter-final exit might signal the start of the slow but inexorable decline of New Zealand rugby.
There are a few straws in the wind. Last weekend a grand total of 17,000 spectators watched the semi-finals of the Air New Zealand Cup. Christchurch, which likes to see itself as New Zealand rugby's centre of power, excellence and tradition, no longer fills its moderately sized stadium when the All Blacks are in town.
This week Bay of Plenty and Southland questioned the feasibility of their ongoing participation in provincial competition, and similar noises emerged from the rugby black hole that is South Auckland.
It was nice of the European clubs to operate a superannuation scheme on behalf of our has-beens and never-quite-weres, but now they're targeting superstars-in-the-making and the magnetic pull of the black jersey is waning before our eyes. Insiders report that the NZRU threw more than enough money at Carl Hayman, had money been the issue. It wasn't.
Talking to another high-profile senior All Black shortly before the team departed for France, I was taken aback by the level of his disenchantment with New Zealand rugby. Short of a Damascene change of heart, he won't be hanging around here for a minute longer than he's contractually obliged to.
Seven members of the World Cup squad have already jumped ship, as have a similar number of back-up players.
An even bigger exodus can be expected in 2008/09 when a whole raft of contracts expire, raising the prospect of a callow All Black side wilting under pressure in 2011. Speaking of 2011. Just when we thought it was safe to relax, Mayor Banks has revived the nightmarish scenario of yet another fractious, agonising and perhaps botched World Cup hosting exercise.
If some elements within the international rugby community are looking for reasons not to take New Zealand seriously, they couldn't hope for a more compelling one than that.
Professional sport is a numbers game and the numbers - population, economic scale, longitude and latitude, time zone - are emphatically in Europe's favour, not ours.
It should be abundantly clear by now that the big English and French clubs, the likes of Toulouse, Stade Francais and Leicester, aspire to a glamorous and lucrative competition along the lines of English soccer's Premier League, which would overshadow the international game.
It would stop for the Six Nations - we may snigger at the standard of rugby but it has tradition and an impressive audience, and the fans understandably relish their biennial trips to Paris, Rome, and London - the World Cup, and very little else. Certainly not cobbled together and essentially meaningless international activity south of the equator.
Looked at from an English or French perspective, where's the downside in a scenario in which the world's best players are on show week in, week out, your core international competition is preserved and your Southern Hemisphere rivals' ability to compete in World Cups is compromised? Talk about win-win.
The IRB might ride to the rescue with a global season, including the restoration of proper tours, a mini World Cup every second year or even annually, and rule changes that reward athleticism, skill and attacking intent, but given that body's history of Euro-centric cronyism, who would count on it?
Perhaps the NZRU and their Australian counterparts might acknowledge geographic reality and the successful models right under their noses and create a logical, sustainable, jet lag-free competition similar to the NRL.
But if nothing changes, then tomorrow morning will be a sign of things to come and we'll just have to get used to being bystanders at the big show.
* Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples reckons this week's police operation has set race relations back 100 years. If it turns out that the state has used a sledgehammer to crack a nut and the disturbing and un-New Zealand spectacle of balaclava-wearing paramilitaries with automatic weapons banging on citizens' doors at four in the morning was in response to a handful of fringe-dwelling fruitcakes acting out their Che Guevara fantasies, then this extravagant claim would have some validity.
If, however, it turns out that there was something genuinely sinister and threatening going on, will he level the same charge at the conspirators?
