Andrew Slack: Cup ethos should still be to include everyone

COMMENT

Ultimately, a World Cup in any sport must determine who is the best. Who comes second and who comes 20th is merely the stuff of trivia for the years to follow.

Is the World Cup enhanced by the presence of teams who have no chance of raising the Webb Ellis Cup or of even qualifying for the play-offs?

It's been a question much pondered and debated as the All Blacks ran in their ninth try against Canada and the Wallabies teased the capacity of the Suncorp Stadium electronic scoreboard to register a three-figure score in their 82-point demolition of Romania.

Success is measured in many ways and the nature of sport is such that there will be no shortage of diverse opinions among the fans and supporters as to what is right and what isn't.

Ask 10 people to pick their best New Zealand XV and you will most likely get 10 different combinations.

Similarly, a perfect World Cup will be different things to different people.

From its birth until 1995, rugby, more than any other football code, prided itself on catering for all types. There was a place for the short and the squat, the long and the lanky, the nimble, the nifty and all sorts between.

Since the game turned professional, there have been a few conditions imposed. Greater fitness, athleticism and commitment have been a natural by-product of play for pay, and we can have little argument with that.

Does that, though, necessarily mean the countries who by dint of economics or circumstance can't quite yet cut the mustard in the big time have to be excluded from getting an invitation to the dance?

If the answer to that comes from the overall sense of fun, excitement and goodwill exuding from the majority of fans who have attended cup games in the first fortnight of the tournament, it is clearly in the negative.

Bring on the Georgians and the Namibians most will say, and fair play to them.

There have been full houses at games between Ireland and Namibia, between Australia and Romania, and while the odd New Zealander may not rate Australians as the most perceptive of people, surely we have earned enough credit points for those doubters to understand that the people who went to those matches actually had a fair notion they weren't going to be in for a nail-biting contest.

It was about the event.

In the early stages at least, the cup should not be just about rugby.

I was perplexed by one newspaper report on one of last week's pool C matches which stated that Samoa's 10-try, 60-13 drubbing of Uruguay, while entertaining, was another of the mismatches that have blighted the early pool games.

Please explain how entertainment blights? At the end of the day isn't it entertainment that we want?

Sure, when the whips really start cracking from November 8, we can begin to put our serious face on at every match, but in the meantime it wouldn't hurt to lighten up a touch.

The most casual rugby observer could have told us six months (and probably six years) ago that the November 22 final would be contested between either New Zealand, England, France, South Africa or Australia, and maybe toss in Ireland or Argentina for the triple-figure-odds punters.

Let's then make it a seven-team World Cup and save everybody a month.

Everybody ridiculed Japan in 1995 when the All Blacks put 145 points on them. Using the logic of some, they should never have been allowed anywhere near a World Cup again. In 2003 they are yet to win a match, but have been more than competitive against the French and the Scots, and have become the personality side of the tournament.

The Cherry Blossoms have been based in rabid league territory in Townsville, but there can be absolutely no doubt that many fans have been won to rugby over the past couple of weeks thanks to their exploits.

Take into account the bounce of the ball and the odd injury, and the World Cup will determine who is best, but that is not its only role. It should continue to be about allowing the little guys to have a dig and see if one day down the track they, too, might become a big guy.

As viewers of the game, are we now so spoiled rotten that unless it is the best of the best, it's not good enough for us? And have those old-fashioned sporting tenets such as involvement and having a go become passe?

God forbid.

* Andrew Slack is a former Wallaby captain.

Full World Cup coverage