Discontented New Zealand drag feet

RUGBY: Next Tuesday's planned World Cup draw, which would outline the entire schedule for the tournament to be held by Australia and New Zealand next year, has been postponed due to the continuing row between the co-hosts which may result in the tournament being moved en bloc to Australia.

The sub-host agreement has not yet been signed by the New Zealand RFU, ostensibly because of New Zealand's insistence on holding the final stages of their lucrative provincial championship, the NPC, during the 2003 tournament. The Australians object to this, and a compromise put forward by the International Board (IB) whereby the NPC semi-finals and final would be held during the first 10 days of the World Cup at venues other than those being used RWC 2003, hasn't yet met with the agreement of the NZRFU.

As a result, Vernon Pugh, the chairman of the International Rugby Board and Rugby World Cup (RWC), confirmed yesterday that the draw has been deferred. "We remain very hopeful that all this will be satisfactorily concluded in the near future. However, until we are in a position to announce with certainty the full details of the schedule, it is considered inappropriate to make any official announcement," he said.

"Once all the necessary contractual agreements are in place and RWC is confident that the obligations set out in the agreements will be fulfilled then the schedule will be announced."

However, it is also believed that the NZRFU are distinctly unhappy about the draft draw, which would place England and South Africa in Australia, with France in New Zealand. Up until yesterday the IB and RWC were officially declining to even comment on the format of the finals, much less whether countries had already been assigned venues (which seems highly probable) or whether a draft draw has been made.

Nonetheless, it was reported in the Sunday Times last September that a draft draw has been made for the tournament, which will see 20 teams divided into four pools of five with the top two in each pool progressing to the quarter-finals, and this has recently been substantiated by reports in both France and Argentina. According to all of these, Ireland have been drawn in Pool A alongside Australia (whom they would meet in the tournament opener), Argentina and two other qualifiers, possibly Chile and Spain.

South Africa and England would be drawn against each other in Pool D in Australia, while New Zealand would be seeded in Pool C alongside Wales, with France based in New Zealand and seeded in Pool B against Scotland and perhaps Samoa and Japan and one other qualifier.

Argentinian sources have been informed that their original ranking of fifth, based on the quarter-final results in the 1999 World Cup, has been changed to eighth by taking into account the pool stages (when they finished behind Wales).

Thus they would be drawn against the reigning champions and number-one ranked side, Australia, and the side ranked Europe One from the qualifying campaign. This is expected to be Ireland, who will play their two qualifiers in September. These two matches are rumoured to be Russia away and Georgia at home - the two sides drew in a qualifying tie in front of a capacity 65,000 crowd in Tbilisi last weekend.

The Pumas, who have just beaten Wales and Scotland, are not amused at the prospect of themselves and Ireland (in reality the sixth- and seventh-best sides in the world) most probably vying for the second qualifying place in the pool.

Worse still, according to this supposed draft draw, were Ireland to finish second they would travel to New Zealand for a quarter-final against the All Blacks, who have never lost a World Cup tie at home.

England would once more be faced with the prospect of having to beat all three Southern Hemisphere sides to win the tournament.

All this will remain conjecture beyond next week, however, with the planning stages for the World Cup reputedly six months behind schedule already, and the tournament itself under a cloud.

However, it is strongly believed that the New Zealanders and Australians will resolve their differences with the help of the IB.