But Rotorua was calm, trusting they would come. Matches there today and next Wednesday should entice campervans into the countryside. If I was their guide, I'd send first-timers to Rotorua. There is nothing wrong with instant culture as an introduction to a country and I love indigenous glitz.
In my own quest for the country we are, or were, or could be, I have gone to rugby clubs because the game has been a glue for New Zealand, bringing together town and country, Maori and Pakeha, young and old.
On two of those three social seams it remains an adhesive. Town and country mix more easily than ever, thanks to modern roads and lifestyle blocks. Maori and Pakeha talk rugby as comfortably as ever. But the only young people I have seen in rugby clubs this week were children.
In the middle of Rotorua's familiar attractions there is an authentic rugby club that has issued a welcome to rugby people from anywhere who would like to drop in. Its manager, Bob Thompson, is one of those characters New Zealanders call a hard case.
He has put on too much weight since he toured Australia as a hooker for New Zealand Maori in 1968 but his vitality is undiminished. He offers, "a beer, a feed and a sing with the Maoris" at Kahukura Rugby and Sports Club.
He put a notice in those terms on the club's website and has a pile of emailed responses from travel agents and intending visitors in France, Italy, South Africa and Namibia. There is one from Argentina looking for a game for average players under 20.
He has ordered 3000 dinners and his whiteboard calendar has bookings for several dates over the next few weeks. For $20 guests will get a meal and their first beer. Rugby people will take it from there.
Rugby people of his vintage, anyway. He can't promise younger hosts. He doesn't know where the younger ones go but they don't come to the club as previous generations did.
Even those who still play don't stay long after the game, he says, don't mix afterwards as they used to.
Thompson blames the culture change on professionalism at the top. He remembers being invited to an All Black celebration after a test win over the Wallabies a few years ago. He left early and found the Australians having more fun.
But he has found they can be just as dull. He was briefly a liaison man for the Queensland Reds and remembers that in the dressing room after a game, "There were more filled rolls and bananas than cans of beer. One guy had a can. One guy."
But the main reason rugby clubs are struggling to attract and retain younger members these days is probably that teenagers who play the game are obliged to play for their school.
Thompson says Rotorua schools won't allow their pupils to play in clubs, "which means a boy comes up through our junior grades, goes to high school and we never see him again. If you are any good at rugby you can stay at school until you are 20".
And if a young player is really good, he says, they will be taken away by a provincial or Super 15 franchise. He knows a lad still at Rotorua Boys High who, he says, has already been signed by the Chiefs. "We developed him for six years but we won't see him again in club rugby."
Even players picked for provincial teams are lost to clubs, he says. "We never see the [Bay of Plenty] Steamers. They go and live at Mt Maunganui for the lifestyle and don't come back."
If he sounds like a grizzler, it is my fault. I asked the questions. He is a cheerful enthusiast who says, "Rugby needs to look at itself, we are losing the grass roots of the game."
The 108-year-old club has had to diversify to survive. It now accommodates netball, hockey and soccer too. It needs any money it can make from the World Cup. With a big screen ready it could be the place to watch a game and taste the country's rugby culture while it lasts.
