The Rugby World Cup is almost here and beneath the highest of high balls stands a familiar figure. It is eight years since Paul Thorburn played Test rugby but, physically, he looks much the same as the mind's eye insists he should. In his role as RWC tournament manager, rather than Welsh captain and full-back, this can be as much a hindrance as a help. Hazy memories of 70-metre penalty goals are not going to save him if things go awry in the coming weeks.

For, make no mistake, this tournament and the hype which will shortly descend on Wales's doorstep will demand strong nerves behind the scenes as well as out front.

The last major sporting event of the millennium is one of those tags that is easy to apply, but it brings its own pressure. We already know the commercial and audience figures will dwarf those of South Africa in 1995. What the organisers must avoid between now and November 6th is dropping the golden egg.

Save for Graham Henry, should the host nation unaccountably lose all its pool games, no one's reputation is more at risk than that of Thorburn or his chief executive Keith Rowlands, the former International Board secretary persuaded out of retirement two years ago to lend his vast experience to the cause.

Some of the stats confronting them would cause some throat-clearing in a Manhattan boardroom, let alone RWC's relatively modest 10th floor offices around the corner from the Millennium Stadium, still a blur of hard hats and scurrying builders.

The projected gross revenue is Stg£65 million, almost three times bigger than 1995. What the experts like to call the multiplier impact, the knock-on effect to the Welsh and UK economies, is estimated at over Stg£800m, four times the amount generated in South Africa.

Around 25,000 overseas visitors are expected on organised trips, plus an unidentified number who will arrive under their own steam. Add a potential worldwide television audience of over three billion, plus the legal problems of the first World Cup since rugby union went professional, and the weight of responsibility on RWC's shoulders becomes clear.

Cardiff's political "Taffia" will certainly monitor their movements closely, as will those who can recall the last time the tournament fetched up on these shores in 1991. Mike Burton still chuckles at the memory of then-English Rugby Football Union secretary Dudley Wood advising the public to ring him for tickets.

It took an age for the tournament's accounts to be published and for years RWC were defensive to the point of paranoia on the subject.

Times have changed but, as this year's cricket World Cup proved, sophisticated sports marketing techniques and outstanding performers do not necessarily guarantee a jackpot. Imagination, humour, hard work and good fortune are needed too, and there are those who have wondered aloud whether all these ingredients are on tap inside RWC's Cardiff bunker.

Rowlands accepts that the tournament, with five host unions involved compared to one, has been trickier to organise than four years ago, but claims the thorniest problems have been sorted.

"By and large, we're happy. The commercial programme and the qualifying process have both been completed and the organisation of the finals has been going on for two years. When you get to 10 weeks before kick-off, you're in a freefall position where you have to carry through the decisions you've made."

In other words if the canopy is full of holes, everyone will soon know about it.

Rowlands has been strapping on similar harnesses for years, but Thorburn is doing a job he probably did not envisage four years ago.

As tournament manager, his role basically involves the rugby side of the event but also requires diplomatic skills at odds with the self-portrait he gave in his 1992 autobiography. "I am no politician and `economy with the truth' doesn't come easily to me," he wrote then.

The same volume was also notable for its low opinion of the written media, characterised by his infamous "scum of the earth" attack on the Sunday Times's Stephen Jones after the Wales-England game in 1989.

"Being involved in this tournament has given me a bigger understanding of how important the media are, particularly in terms of promoting the event around the world," Thorburn concedes. "When you're a player you perhaps don't appreciate the significance of it."

How blessed are those who forgive. Well, almost. "There are times when you wonder why there are so many media in the stadium." No problem when Jonesy rings up for tickets, then? "He hasn't yet, I've no doubt he will."

Over 1,000 journalists have applied for press accreditation, including scribes from such rugby heartlands as Turkey and Hungary. So far 100 have been rejected. There have also been 500 applications for photographers' passes. To put this in perspective, Twickenham usually accommodates only 60 at any one international.

Thorburn's immediate priorities, though, lie elsewhere. He is unimpressed, for a start, by Ireland coach Warren Gatland's apparent suggestion - since characterised as a misapprehension by Gatland - that he might field an understrength side against Australia in pursuit of an easier quarter-final. "If that's the way players and management feel, then it's a sad time for rugby. That's my personal view. Teams should go out there to win everything."

Thorburn is also dismissive of the argument that, at quoted official prices of up to Stg£150 for a final ticket, there is an onus on players, coaches and referees to at least attempt to offer a spectacle if rugby is to aspire to the sort of rarified worldwide status currently enjoyed by soccer.

"I'm quite happy to watch a game with forwards knocking lumps out of each other. A good physical confrontation is as appealing to me as a winger sidestepping four or five players to score a try."

Former Neath players are nothing if not realistic about their rugby. "If all 41 games are boring then it'll be considered a bad event, even though organisationally it could have been the best-run ever. If it's disorganised and chaotic behind the scenes but all 41 games are excellent the public will perceive it as the greatest sporting event ever. I'd prefer a combination of the two."

One can only wish him well. Have you ever considered the logistics of ensuring around 70 Uruguayans and Spaniards, plus match officials and daintily-shod dignitaries, discover things to their liking in the distinctly unLatin surroundings of Galashiels? Not to mention the mismatches when both sides face South Africa.

Or the refereeing interpretations, the prospect of liaising with the British Sports Council over more than 300 random drug tests and the task of keeping the media informed night and day. Daunting is the polite word for it.

When Thorburn talks about the "tempo" picking up in the office over the past month, he sounds like a man who has suddenly noticed water lapping around his ankles. Either a manageable flood or a tidal wave will follow.

"There will be hiccups, there always are in every event. Hopefully they'll be minor ones," says Thorburn calmly. "I was always nervous before I played, but this is slightly different."

And when it is all over and the last Uruguayans have gone home, Thorburn will have to seek another job. "My contract finishes at the end of December and I'm looking around at the moment." He would be happy to stay in rugby administration, unless of course the next few weeks knock that ambition out of him.

If the going gets really tough, he can always cast his mind back to the inaugural World Cup in Australia in 1987 when some Welsh players went for a skinny dip on the Gold Coast. Thorburn had all his clothes stolen by a team-mate and the ensuing chase ended with him standing naked in a local McDonald's enduring jokes about the size of his Big Mac.

Twelve years on, the task confronting him and Wales is to serve us all a whopper of a World Cup.