Rugby World Cup 2019: New logo has 'Japanese flavour'

RWC2019 organisers strangely rolled out the logo and tournament dates this week despite the rugby world's attention being firmly focused elsewhere.

World’s Cup – your daily global wrap takes its penultimate stroll around the planet looking for near pointless rugby snippets.

It may look like an imprisoned Uruguayan mountain is wearing a jaffa for a hat but World Rugby decided it couldn't be too careful with the logo for the 2019 RWC, subjecting the design to "rigid and rigorous tests" to ensure no-one else had come up with it first. If that seems a little cautious, the Japan Times helpfully reminds us that organisers for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games had to scrap their original emblem after accusations of plagiarism. RWC2019 organisers strangely rolled out the logo and tournament dates this week despite the rugby world's attention being firmly focused elsewhere. "It's a variation on our own rugby logo," World Rugby boss Brett Gosper said of the sun rising over Mt Fuji logo. "So we've already been through a thorough process in terms of the shaping, the typing, and so on. This has been given a Japanese flavour."

GEORGIAN BREAKTHROUGH

Georgia's continued emergence on the world stage has been given a boost by an easily manipulated poll on an obscure website. According to the 9000-odd voters on a The Rugby Blog poll, Georgia's teenage tyro Vasil Lobzhanidze is hands down the World Rugby breakthrough player of the year. "Young Lobzhanidze wrote his name in the Rugby World Cup history books when he started in Georgia's opening win over Tonga, becoming the youngest player in the tournament's history to do so at 18 years and 340 days," reports Georgia Today. At last check, Lobzhanidze had a suspiciously high 96 per cent of the vote. Nehe Milner-Scudder had just three per cent and some Scottish fella the remaining one per cent. In other exciting news from the South Caucasus rugby powerhouse, hooker Jaba Bregvadze has signed for English Premiership side Worcester Warriors. Apparently another hooker from Eastern Europe was just what the West Midlands needed.

GOING DUTCH

The final may be an all Antipodean love-in but that hasn't stopped RWC2015 from successfully spreading the oval ball gospel into previously unfertile territory. According to Dutch broadcaster Nos, playing numbers in the Netherlands have surged 16 per cent since the tournament began. "Our membership has been growing steadily for years but this is a real boost," Coen Potters of Rugby Nederland told Nos. He put the increase partly down to people being fed up with football and 'all the fuss around world football body Fifa'. There are 83 rugby clubs in the Netherlands - from Alkmaar to Zwolle - and that total is also rising.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

The BIG story this week appears to have been Zimbabwean-born Aussie egg snatcher David Pocock inviting his hero David Attenborough to Sunday's final. Apparently Pocock likes to put his feet up after a hard game and watch hippos mating. "I'm a big fan of wildlife programmes, particularly those by David Attenborough. He's a big hero of mine," Pocock said. "On Sunday for post-game recovery I put on a couple of Attenborough episodes and put my feet up." Of course, you already know that as the wildly important story was picked up The Guardian, Telegraph, Independent, ESPN, Daily Mail, Fox Sports and even TVNZ. No word yet if the 89-year-old naturalist plans to take up the offer, but if he does we can only hope that someone gets him into a commentary box. "There we see the apex predator, Richard McCaw, approaching the ruck from just behind the offside line. Camouflaged in the blackist All Blacks jersey ever, he's almost invisible to the unwitting Wallaby forwards, who have no idea of the mortal danger lurking in Twickenham's lush undergrowth."