John Roughan: Maori TV fits the Cup's Pacific flavour

Another wet week raises an alarming question: who scheduled Rugby World Cup 2011 for a New Zealand spring?

Pity the organisers who have had their umbrellas up most days since September 9, the date two years hence that the tournament kicks off.

This weekend would be a big one at the new Eden Park with semi-finals today and tomorrow. Has the rain stopped?

It has been unseasonably cold too. How many of the expected 30,000 visitors, many of them travelling the country in camper vans, would have been stranded in the North Island snow last week - snow in October?

Anything can happen in our climate at this time of the year. We have two seasons, a warm and dry six months from January to June and a dismal, squally second half that can last to Christmas. Why didn't they schedule the Cup for March-April?

Queens Wharf is going to need a good canopy for party central.

The organisers I dare say have more pressing worries than the weather right now, or at least worries that are not entirely in the lap of the gods. One of them is in the lap of the All Black selectors. The touring squad to be announced tomorrow has to contain the seeds of better things than we have seen this season.

In passing, permit me a nominee: Colin Slade for fullback. I saw him once in that position for Canterbury this winter and he was so startlingly good I'm surprised nobody has written about it. I think the real selectors saw him too.

Selections may be beyond the influence of Cup organisers but decisions in the lap of the event owners, the International Rugby Board, are not. Martin Snedden and his team kept very quiet while the Government nearly tore itself apart over free-to-air television bids this week.

National's alliance with the Maori Party was sorely tested when Sports Minister Murray McCully jumped on Maori Television's bid for sole rights. McCully so much wants the promotional power of TVNZ behind the Cup that he was prepared to put up tax money against Maori Television's tax money.

I suspect Snedden's organisation is happier the Prime Minister has ordered any bid backed by taxpayers must involve both channels, and that Maori Television will have the commentary box seat.

Snedden wants the World Cup to have the "look and feel" of Polynesia. Its logo incorporates the koru in every possible letter. The opening match will feature the All Blacks not against France, though their nemesis of 2007 is in the same pool, but Tonga.

Cynics will suggest another reason, but when Snedden announced the opening opponent he first played a film to the press conference of Tonga's haka as performed before their match with the All Blacks at the 2003 World Cup in Australia. It was, if you remember, utterly magnificent.

If it can happen again, and the All Blacks answer it with the full haka they have developed in recent years, the world will tune into a performance of thunderous Polynesian character, stirring the crowd to the resounding levels of noise and enthusiasm as it did in Australia.

Samoa should also qualify for the Cup, joining Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand to give the festival a South Pacific flavour. Presented by Maori Television it would be done, on recent evidence, distinctively well.

Snedden must now do all he can to persuade the IRB to accept the united bid. Without our Polynesian side we'd present a dull face to the world.

It is just a pity, but understandable, that the vast majority of rugby followers will be watching Sky. The commercial breaks that finance free-to-air television are too frequent, loud and long. It is well worth a subscription to avoid them.

Maori Television is bidding for much more than rugby matches in its quest to carry the World Cup. Free of the commercial demands on TVNZ, it obviously hopes to become the public service channel TVNZ cannot be.

But I have been looking forward to a World Cup that might not be experienced solely on television. The plan to put visiting teams in host towns large and small, throughout the country, was truly exciting.

Teams could taste the game's culture here, their supporters could enjoy local hospitality, towns could embrace the teams as their own through the pool rounds.

Snedden has been around all the regions suggesting something like this for a couple of years.

If the possibilities had caught the public imagination we'd be hearing the enthusiasm by now.

When the match venues were announced in March, they were given to the dozen largest centres. The announcement of team bases is due next month. No date has been set yet.

If the Cup is going to be confined to the cities, that would be a pity - worse than the weather really.