KEY POINTS:
The pizzazz, celebration and hype of the World Cup, which began in Paris this morning, should not be allowed to delude us. This is a game approaching a crisis.
Obscure your view of reality and all you will see will be finely honed young men of impressive physicality running faster, hitting each other harder and drawing more support for this gladiatorial exercise than has ever been known. Along the way, they earn immense sums of money for the undoubted price they must pay in later life.
Ever greater sums of money are pouring into the sport from TV and sponsors. We are told that two million tickets have been sold for this World Cup and the capacity figure is around 87 per cent, an impressive total. The French hosts, who will put on a wonderful party, are paying the International Rugby Board a whopping £48 million to fund them for the next four years.
So isn't the game great and isn't the world of rugby marvellous, circa 2007?
No. The game has never been more formulaic and predictable to watch (except in the case of New Zealand and occasionally Australia) because today it revolves no longer around skills but huge men running into each other, crashing to earth and re-cycling the ball for one of their teammates to do the exact same thing. Maybe after about the 9th or 11th phase, you might see someone actually get the ball in the backline and do something constructive with it. Either that or the game is stopped and a penalty is kicked.
Defence is the mantra; it has throttled the game like some assailant in a dark alley. Subtlety and skills have been trampled underfoot.
Studying paint drying is often about as interesting as watching the modern game. As that great Frenchman Jean Pierre Rives (only half) joked a week or so back, "In my day, you had to run after players and catch them to make a tackle. Now, they come looking for you with the ball so you just stand there and wait for them. What a stupid game."
So now comes a World Cup of unbelievable longevity. It is absurd that we shall have over six weeks of crunching collisions, incessant penalty kicks and such like for just 20 teams, most of whom have no hope whatever of winning the tournament. The 2006 soccer World Cup was contested by 32 countries and lasted just a month. Rugby squads today are far bigger so the argument about needing time to rest is bunkum.
The IRB has already suggested it may reduce the 2011 tournament in New Zealand to 16 teams and this must happen. For all the board's chest-puffing about more than 100 countries around the world now playing the game, the reality is that it is played to a very high level in only about six or seven nations. The game is struggling in places like Scotland, Japan, the US, Canada and the Pacific islands. It is a sport contested at the very highest level chiefly by only six nations - New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, France, England and maybe Ireland. In terms of growing strength among nations, the march of professionalism has meant the sport has actually contracted at the top level. No matter how rose-tinted your glasses, that isn't a picture of vibrancy and health.
The old guard who administer the game and still cling rigidly to power will enjoy their 6-7 weeks of luxury in 5 star hotels, sipping the finest wines and devouring great plate loads of Gallic cuisine.
But how does that square with a professional sport? Isn't it time proven businessmen played an increasing role in running this professional game? And what of the amateur arm of the game, sadly neglected, withering and dying in some countries because of insufficient care and attention. Understandably, the IRB is far too pre-occupied with administering and running the professional sport to be distracted by the needs of the amateur game. But the latter plainly needs attention if it is to be saved. A separate administration should be set up to run amateur rugby.
Ironically, there has probably never been a World Cup in which there have been so few genuine contenders to win the tournament (New Zealand, South Africa, possibly France but no others) yet so many erratic, unpredictable sides who are really not that good (Australia, Ireland, England, Argentina, Wales) who just might upset any opponent on a given day. Hopefully, that unpredictability will maintain interest throughout the marathon. It needs to because with tickets for some pool matches costing as much as £200, and £330 and upwards for the final, actually going to France, staying in a hotel, eating out and attending a game or two is going to require the bank manager's approval of an extended mortgage.
Is rugby worth all this?
The 2007 World Cup is going to have to be one hell of a spectacle to justify all this excess.
Peter Bills is chief rugby correspondent for Independent News & Media in London
