Paul Lewis.

Paul Lewis.

I will tell you what I find most distasteful about sport. Money. Not that I have anything against players and sporting bodies making it. Oh, no, no, no ... perish the thought. Money, as the old song has it, makes the world go around.

If I was being entirely honest, I would tell you that I sometimes think I was born too early and wouldn't I have tried harder in my own rugby career (such as it was) if I'd known I could head off to Europe and make shedloads a year by not being a top player? Well, of course, I would have.

It's just that sometimes, sport seems to be more about money than it is about sport.

Like cricket's wretched IPL, perhaps the most obvious example, followed closely by John O'Neill's drooling courtship of Japan in his proposed reincarnation of the Super 14 and the NZRU's highly smug announcement of the fourth Bledisloe Cup match in Hong Kong, God help us.

The IPL is the Indian Twenty20 cricket league which held those rather vulgar auctions where extreme amounts of money were spent on players to bowl four overs a game and to have a swish of the bat in the fast-food frenzy of the 20-over game.

My lip curls a bit at this because, as was evidenced by John Bracewell, Daniel Vettori and the Black Caps at Hamilton, test cricket is still the business, thank you very much. If this wasn't the highlight of Bracewell's coaching career, it damned well ought to be. No Shane Bond, no batsmen to speak of and plenty of criticism of New Zealand's test capability under Bracewell from writers who should have known better (yes, yes, yes ... including me) and the Black Caps produced a wonderful display of grit, discipline and teamwork to unseat England.

No, I don't much care for Twenty20 as a whole and even less about the IPL. What do we care about a popcorn and candyfloss league in India? Nothing. In terms of sporting endeavour and prestige, the IPL is to cricket what diarrhoea is to dodgy curry houses - an unfortunate by-product.

But it means a great deal when you factor in politics and money. The IPL is being set up to gazump the rebel ICL league and I belong to the school of thought that both leagues will, in the tradition of the Oozelum bird, disappear up their own fundaments once the ICL has fallen over and there is little or no reason for the IPL to exist.

Because, you see, for the money and the politics to make sense, there actually has to be some real sport behind them.

Which leads us to Aussie rugby boss John O'Neill and his plans for the Super 14 to be extended to include a franchise for Japan.