ON RUGBY: Secrecy surrounds the opening ceremony to the 2003 Rugby World Cup this Friday. The Kiwi-born actor Russell Crowe and the Aussie pop icon Kylie Minogue are rumoured to be amongst the star-studded cast. But we know the Aussies will put on a show.

Ever since the dawn of the new Millennium, they have shown they are the hosts with the most.

The fifth World Cup could hardly have a better showcase than the country which currently hosts the champions of the world in both this sport and many others. Record television audience, record crowds, records for breaking records and, no doubt, record profits. It's ironic to think that more will be spent on the opening ceremony than on ensuring the weaker nations have all their players at the final.

It's not the role of the Australian Rugby Union to spread its imminent largesse from RWC 2003 to the more impoverished countries. But in what will also be the longest, most drawn out rugby World Cup, it's unlikely that the quantity will be matched by the quality.

Far from developing the game globally, the World Cup has accentuated the divide between the rich and the poor. Eddie O'Sullivan, having been assistant coach to the USA Eagles four years ago (and admittedly, the words USA and impoverished in the same sentence has a curious ring to it), has seen it from both ends of the spectrum.

"It depends on the country. I think countries who cannot sustain professional leagues in their own country and have managed to ship their best players overseas to play professionally have kept pace with things. Argentina would be an example of that, Romania have a lot of players based in France.

"But the teams who cannot sustain professional leagues, like the Americans, and have found it difficult to ship players overseas, makes it very difficult for them. Most of their teams are amateurs playing in a professional World Cup, so I think that's the key for teams who are down the pecking order, whether they can get their players overseas to play a high level.

"It was something that came home to me in America four years ago," recalls O'Sullivan. "We had a few players playing overseas and they could sustain the level they were at, but most of the players were amateurs coming out of club rugby, and they were really out of depth."

The flip side is that some of the more impoverished countries' leading players, especially the Pacific islanders, have lost some of their leading overseas' based players for purely monetary reasons.

"Yeah, I think every player should be able to play in the World Cup, at no cost to them anyway. But that's something for the IRB, not Eddie O'Sullivan."

The International Rugby Board have reacted with apparent shock and sadness at this development. But it's not as if this problem has crept up suddenly and without warning.

If anything, the World Cup's expansion from 16 to 20 teams in the last World Cup and this one will merely lead to more mismatches. Of the 40 pool games, about half can safely be categorised as foregone conclusions, and a record for record-winning margins will hardly show the game up in a positive light.

Back in 1991, this writer was fortunate to be based in Wales for a compelling four-way fight between the eventual winners Australia, Wales, an emerging Western Samoa and a stylish, talented, if untypically lightweight, Argentina team.

Virtually all six games were interesting affairs and fairly competitive, with the Samoans edging out Wales to qualify for the quarter-finals.

Even if the tournament reverted to 16 countries, divided into four pools of four, it's unlikely the World Cup could throw up such a competitive group again, and it certainly won't this time around.

Surprisingly, there have been only 10 victories in the four preceding World Cups of more than 50 points, but casting a cursory glance over the fixture list one could readily envisage another 10 in these finals alone. As the rain-sodden hours dwindle by in the build-up to Friday's opener, a source of idle speculation has been guessing which game will provide the biggest hammering.

England v Georgia or Uruguay, New Zealand v Tonga or Italy, Australia v Namibia, or maybe France v Japan, to name just a few? There are plenty of contenders.

Indeed, the All Blacks' quartet of Pool D opponents (Wales, Italy, Tonga or Canada) have already intimated that they will field second-string sides in those games while reserving their strongest line-ups in the dog-fight for second place.

As an aside, therefore, especially bearing in mind the way these All Blacks play to their cutting edge out wide, wagers on the awesome Doug Howlett or Joe Rokocoko becoming the tournament's leading try scorers would seem like smart investments, and could even be safely tucked away by the end of the pool stages.

Italy beat the Welsh in Rome last year but appear to have fallen off again.

They look rudderless without Diego Dominguez and short on capable alternatives and goalkickers, particularly given John Kirwan's amazing decision to leave out Leicester's summer recruit Ramiro Pez.

Like Tonga, the Azzurri have also been hit by a ridiculously unfair schedule - four games in 15 days - which seriously imperils their chances of edging out the Welsh, and hence it could be the ultra-tough Canucks who push hardest for that second qualifying spot.

"We were very disappointed with our draw and we spoke about it at the time," says the Italian coach Kirwan. "But it's our draw, let's get on with it.

"We're training accordingly. We got criticised for our performances in the warm-up games but we are doing special training so that our players can recover three days later, because we have to.

"It would be fair to say that we'll give it our best shot against the All Blacks," adds Kirwan, "but then it's important that we beat Tonga and Canada, fundamental games. Tonga and Canada will be our World Cup quarter-final and semi-final, and then three days later let's have a go (against Wales). We've got absolutely nothing to lose and we'll have a crack at it."

Yet New Zealand and Wales, by dint of comparison, play their pool games over periods of 23 and 22 days. Funny how it didn't happen to any of the more traditional rugby powers, such as the game's eight founding fathers. Or, more to the point, that you just know it never could.

gthornley@irish-times.ie