Plenty of bums warming the cheap seats

By CHRIS RATTUE at the World Cup

This World Cup sure beats the last sporting family gathering I went to in Australia.

That was three years ago, when Sydney hosted the Olympics, and just about everything turned into a marathon.

It started from the moment of arrival in Sydney, when you were greeted as a member of the Olympic family and whisked down a tunnel at the airport, and put on their so-called transport system.

With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been quicker to hitch-hike. But we weren't to know.

At least with the World Cup, they let you out of their sight and you are perfectly free to get hopelessly lost through your own devices.

The Olympic family also spent 18 hours a day frisking your body for concealed weapons, and x-raying everything that wasn't nailed down.

It's a strange sensation, when kindly-looking family members keep telling you to "spread 'em."

To be fair to the Olympic workers, they were mainly courteous, even though it was a very dysfunctional family at times.

I haven't got to Sydney yet, but if Brisbane is anything to go by, the world rugby family is strictly hillbilly by comparison to the glamorous Olympics.

But like the famous country Clampetts from TV land, Australian rugby has found oil with this World Cup.

By day, it's all straw hat and a bit of corn between the teeth. By night, they've struck a fortune.

You can be fooled about the success of Australia's tournament during the day. I had trouble even finding someone you might call a World Cup official on arrival in Brisbane yesterday. And I've yet to strike anything that you might call a security arrangement.

Brisbane Airport was a World Cup-free zone, and low-key street banners were the only sign of rugby life. Oh yeah, there was one advertising sign - a scruffy street-level tarpaulin outside a pub showing John Eales clutching a can of beer and spouting a World Cup-linked slogan.

There was hardly saturation coverage in the Brisbane Courier Mail either. A small racing story made the front page, but rugby dipped out. The World Cup took up about two-thirds of the back page.

And revamped Suncorp Stadium, the site of Brisbane's earliest graveyard, was like, well, a graveyard.

Even the press accreditation office was closed, leaving two shop workers to represent the sport in a merchandise outlet which had just about everything except customers.

It was a glorious day, and the sun sparkled off an expanse of vacant concrete around a stadium that has throbbed over the years to the deeds of Wally Lewis, Allan Langer and Co.

But that concrete will get a serious pounding on Friday when the All Blacks play Tonga.

If Brisbane is largely carrying on as usual during the day for now, it has lapped up the World Cup at night. A remarkable 47,000 spectators - technically a sellout - watched a very ordinary Scottish side beat the United States on Monday, with 700 people turned away at the gate.

Originally, five of the Brisbane matches were set down for the 22,000-capacity Ballymore, but all were shifted to the 52,000-capacity league headquarters as ticket sales went crazy.

Even Fiji v the United States, played at 5pm on a Wednesday, drew 30,000 people.

What is the secret? The Australian Rugby Union is credited with an excellent marketing campaign, but it's the prices that the citizens are finding just the ticket.

They ranged from A$5 ($5.80) to just A$20 ($23) for the Scotland-United States game. They are so cheap that some people bought blocks of around 50 to boost their chances of getting the balloted quarter-final tickets.

So far, it's been a mainly local crowd, but 20,000 tourists are expected in Brisbane at quarter-final time, when the city should host England v Wales and Australia v Scotland.

From New Zealand's point of view, the sub-hosting disaster looks sicker by the minute.

And here's an irony, given that the row involved a dispute over clearing the corporate boxes of existing tenants during the tournament. Since some of the open-air boxes were unsold at Suncorp on Monday night, a small group of Joe Public - who had paid A$20 for their seats - were ushered into the lap of luxury at no extra charge.

No freebie food mind you, but still another pie in the eye for New Zealand rugby.