Gerry Thornley On Rugby: Rugby World Cup organisers have proudly made much of a record points feast in the opening weekend of RWC 2003. The opening eight matches have yielded 512 points and 67 tries, eclipsing by almost a third the previous best in 1995.
Even the number of penalties is the lowest at this stage since the inaugural World Cup in 1987. But who do they think they are kidding? For sure there has been some terrific rugby. Referees, allowing for an irritating habit of favouring the bigger sides with most of the marginal decisions, have, by and large, allowed a fair contest for the ball at the breakdown.
However, many of the matches have been predictable and boringly lop-sided affairs, though anyone who expresses surprise at this must have had their head in the sand up until last week. The eight matches not only went to form, the aggregate points tally was 429 to 83, with the divvy up of tries 59-8.
The minnows have landed a few blows, but nothing remotely telling. Another predictable feature of the games has been how, to varying points, those minnows have managed to remain competitive up to a certain juncture before the vastly contrasting investment in fitness regimes and back-up staff took its inevitable toll.
Fiji and Romania, about the pick of the minnows thus far, were trailing by only 24-18 and 26-10 early in the second half against France and Ireland respectively but couldn't last the pace. France, it has to be said, were mightily impressive, their ability to force a stream of turnovers in contact the basis for an increasingly dominant display.
It was, according to L'Equippe journalists out here, the best performance ever in the pool stages of a World Cup by the French, which might actually be a bit disconcerting for them. Normally they are like an Italian soccer team at the World Cup finals, unconvincingly stuttering through the group phase before catching fire in the knockout stages when their backs are against the wall.
Certainly Ireland's win wasn't on that scale, nor any of the other demolitions. But on last Saturday's evidence Romania might well be on a par or even better than, say, Italy. Besides, huge routs don't serve the tournament, the victims or even the executioners well. Romania are back, and it's good to see.
"We have a budget of
£1 million, England have
£60 million, we have to understand our level," the Romanian team manager Florin Campeanu told me last week, while a newspaper photograph of the Australian World Cup squad last week carried the heading of AUS$40 million (about €25 million), as an estimate of the investment in that squad.
Twenty teams in the same World Cup, but from different universes. Money talks in rugby now, more than ever, and while the IRB don't have a blank cheque, in truth they pay lip service to levelling the playing field.
Indeed the inequities of the draw have merely loaded the dice in favour of the eight founding fathers of the board - the Tri-Nations and the original Five Nations. What this tournament needs as much as anything is for the weaker rugby nations to make another breakthrough - Pool A excepted, of course - but the growing gulf in spending power and the scheduling has made this more unlikely than ever.
For starters, the IRB could employ their legal people in making basic club and provincial contracts more watertight in terms of ensuring players aren't hugely out of contract for playing in a World Cup, and help to at least defray potential loss of earnings through win bonuses. Does anyone really believe English clubs and, say, the New Zealand provinces apply the same conditions for "domestic" and overseas players?
The efforts which the French Federation make to lend Romanian rugby a helping hand put to shame the Southern Hemisphere big three and England. Not alone does the FFR release their French-based players for the World Cup and employ Bernard Charreyre as the Oaks' coach, they have played them once or twice a year most years since 1960, and continue to do so.
And more pressure must be brought to bear on the bigger countries to lend more of a helping hand. The IRFU are better than most in this regard too, and seem to grant friendly Test matches to the smaller countries far more than any of the other IB founding eight.
It's a fairly ridiculous state of affairs when Ireland travel all the way to Tonga and Samoa last summer yet, scandalously, the All Blacks have never played there. They take their Polynesian neighbours best players, actively discourage those who aren't playing for the All Blacks to not play for their islands, and yet give little or nothing back in return. And Australia, while taking less, aren't much better.
New Zealand employ John Boe as coach of Samoa but even Boe and his assistant, Michael Jones, one of the All Blacks all-time greats, are patently ashamed by New Zealand's insulting attitude to Samoan rugby.
In fairness, the All Blacks have granted the Samoans four games in New Zealand in the last decade but in the most recent of them, a 50-6 win in Albany two years ago, Boe recently recounted his team's humiliating off-field experience.
A fortnight before the match the Samoan union were advised there would be no post-match function. Boe sent an email pleading for some sort of post-match function, as it would be "a huge event for our young players to rub shoulders with their idols" but the New Zealand union again refused, merely extending an invitation to "share sandwiches with the boys (the All Blacks) in their changing shed after the game".
Boe, not unreasonably, thought this was disrespectful, but in any event after the match the Samoan players put on their number one blazers and excitedly waited outside the All Blacks changing rooms. "The door opens and the manager walks out and he said: "Sorry, no time. We've got a pool session."
Jones turned to Boe and said: "JB, I feel humiliated."
"And we were. We were humiliated. Now I believe it is a lack of respect."
The next day there was a function, at which all the All Blacks and their wives were invited, along with NZRU administrators. They extended invitations to just three Samoan administrators, "one of whom didn't go because he was insulted", added Boe.
A little respect would be a starting point.
