Off the bench: It's rugby - but not as we know it

By CHRIS RATTUE

Colin Meads used the S word. And if it's all right for Pinetree - well it's all right for the rest of us.

The World Cup debacle is the classic case of The Shit Hits the Fan.

The head of New Zealand rugby, David Rutherford, can stare at the camera all he likes and proclaim "this is not about money, it's about rugby." But you can file that comment away in the "sport-has-nothing-to-do-with-politics" file.

The chickens have come home to roost this time and while the moneyed and the corporate "supporters" of sport battle with their egos and profit margins, Joe and Jane Citizen can only stand on the sideline and hope that the game they love is not ripped apart by egos and greed.

Whether the World Cup is held in Taumarunui or Toowoomba is not the point. Whether the location of the matches gives the All Blacks a better chance of winning a trophy named after a mythical English schoolboy is irrelevant.

The most significant points about these rights and wrongs is that the central figures are things called corporate box holders, caterers, advertisers ... in other words - despite what Rutherford tries to claim - money. Don't see much mention of Joe and Jane in that.

Which leaves the average sports supporter in this country in a strange place.

To get what they want, in other words some World Cup games held here, they must march up and down in their living rooms waving placards in support of our:

STADIUM CATERERS

These are the people who have designed the Stadium Burger - otherwise known as the Stadium Burglar. They also make something that should be known as "hit and miss" rather than fish and chips. That's because you can bite into a foot-long piece of batter and never know whether you might just be latching on to the cube of fish hidden in there somewhere. Maybe we should get some overseas caterers in for the World Cup. They might give us a better deal.

CORPORATE BOX HOLDERS

Rutherford might see them as little Kiwi battlers, and they probably are compared with the rich overseas mob who want to nick their space during the cup. But spare the sympathy. Corporate boxes are basically places where big noters try to impress other big noters. Good luck to them. Their money, which usually comes from selling things to Joe and Jane, helps to reduce the ticket prices for Joe and Jane. It's their form of socialism. Most of the CBHs - the ones who have an interest in rugby - will flit off to Australia and watch the World Cup anyway in someone else's corporate box.

ADVERTISERS

Banks, phone companies, American food franchises ... wonderful people. Considering what New Zealand is about to lose, there has actually been a remarkable lack of passion in this debate.

The memory may be playing tricks, but there seemed to be more vehement anti-Australian comments all those years ago when Trevor Chappell acted within the rules but outside the spirit when he rolled a cricket ball along the ground.

At least the Chappell brothers acted on the spur of the moment - John O'Neill and his fellow Australian rugby administrators have clearly done a Ned Kelly on New Zealand.

Maybe, deep down, New Zealanders know that the game which has meant so much to them, and the reasons, have been taken away anyway.