Time for tempo to really heat up

The format has been flawed, the marketing has been non-existent, the disciplinary procedures at times risible, the refereeing at other times has not been much better, and the rugby itself has thus far been the worst of the four World Cups. Apart from that, everything has gone swimmingly.

Of all the many flaws, it's hard to know which has been the most irritating. Perhaps it's just the generality of it all, for it's not as if rugby hasn't had three trial runs, one of which eight years ago was nearly identical. Somehow it didn't seem to matter so much in 1991 when the World Cup was held in five different countries. Then there was a far greater sense of something significant going on. Not so now.

The marketing has been well below par, and the ticketing over-priced - hence, the laughable sound of the RWC '99 organisers and the respective home unions passing the buck with greater alacrity than the All Blacks pass the ball.

How, for example, can there be family packages for some of the pool games in England, such as the Huddersfield match last Thursday between the All Blacks and Italy, and not for most other games, without even concessions for senior citizens, students, children or the unemployed? The net result was 98,500 vacant seats for the final two Pool A games in Scotland, when the Scotland-Springbok showdown should have been kept until last.

Nor should the IRFU and RWC '99 be too smug about operations in Pool E. Similar ticketing, marketing and planning flaws undermined the group games here. Even around the environs of Dublin 4, save for match day, there is little sense of the World Cup taking place.

By comparison, on the morning after the opener in the Millennium Stadium you couldn't escape the World Cup. Posters galore, and even the mannequins in the shop windows had rugby balls for heads.

Sure, they got their sell-out in Lansdowne Road for Ireland-Australia, but with proper marketing and linked ticketing they surely could have increased the 22,000 and 25,000 attendances for Ireland's pool games against the US and Romania. As for the US-Romania match, could it have been put on at a worse venue and a worse time than Lansdowne Road on Saturday night?

It came as no surprise that Limerick put Dublin and Belfast to shame. Posters indicated all roads led to Thomond Park, press packs outlined Limerick's history and rugby's role in the city's culture, and the sell-out buttressed by hordes of expatriate Aussies and Americans lent the day a real sense of occasion as well as enlivening the Eagles and the contest itself.

France, despite their own team's travail, seem to have maximised the most of limited potential with the selling of Pool C. It's an awful pity that Bernard Lappaset, possibly for personal political reasons as much as anything else, allowed the French Federation to row in with this latest Five Nations' effort.

With their recent experience of football's World Cup, the French had the grounds and the infrastructure to host it in their own right, but now that day has probably been delayed even longer.

With the Australians set to host the event in 2003, and other countries such as New Zealand, South Africa again, France, and maybe even Japan or the US, likely to bid for sole hosting of the World Cup, it could be another 20 years before the likes of Ireland or Scotland obtain a slice of the RWC cake again. You can't help but feel that a glorious opportunity has been missed.

The clampdown on violence via an independent citing commissioner has been well meant, but far too inconsistent. An excessive precedent was set by the Colin Charvis case, and thereafter we had the risible case of a Fijian (Marika Vunibaka) being let off scot-free for head-butting on the grounds that he had already been punished by way of his sending-off. This neglects the fact that he was dismissed in the 82nd minute.

Meantime, Trevor Brennan received a two-game ban for having his face used as a punch bag, and maybe getting in one or two punches of his own. Nor, we can be assured, will politics permit both Christian Califano and Fabien Pelous to receive suspensions for their foul play against Fiji.

That encounter was arguably the worst example of a perceived bias towards the lesser nations, as also existed eight years ago. There have been a host of other examples, Jim Fleming whistling Italy off the park in Huddersfield and permitting two tries that contained a forward pass and Glenn Osborne clearly being dragged into touch.

Similarly, there was Ed Morrison's 25-7 penalty count in favour of Wales against Samoa, including two penalty tries, and Gareth Thomas being awarded a try in the corner despite scoring via the corner flag. In such instances in Australian Rugby League, the referee can call on a fourth official to view a slow-motion replay. The technology exists, so why not use it? A World Cup final could be decided by such an erroneous call.

Is it my imagination, or could this week's breakdown of the knockout games among the referees be contributing toward this perceived bias in favour of the bigger nations? Because we all know that ultimately it's going to pan out between the long-established powers.

Thus far, we've had 30 games spread in 19 days, 10 of which have been idle, and the games have come in such a compressed state (often four on a given day) that most travelling supporters would have been lucky to see two of them.

Britain has had to endure ITV's predictably poor coverage, while many of the matches on ITV2 are not available to most viewers. Why not take less money, and have ITV and BBC go toeto-toe as in football?

Yet, bizarrely, on the one occasion games should have kicked off simultaneously (the final games in the respective pools) they didn't. Hence, Argentina had three different knock-out options available to them against Japan last Saturday evening.

The completion of that game meant 30 of the 41 matches (or almost 75 per cent) had been used to whittle the 20 competing nations down to 11 (by 45 per cent), whereas henceforth 10 matches will reduce the field from 11 to one.

Of course a sudden increase in tempo is not unusual of any World Cup in any sport, and in some ways is desirable. But it has meant that apart from the few games with a knock-out feel to them, such as the England-New Zealand, Wales-Samoa, Scotland-South Africa and some of the minnows' showdowns, there simply haven't been enough good games.

That is all about to change. The World Cup ends for three teams tomorrow, another four next weekend. There are bound to be a few epics among these games. Effectively, the tournament starts now - which is just as well.