KEY POINTS:
He comes from the land of the Pampas, but the similarities to France's most famous rugby son are irresistible.
Agustin Pichot, captain of Argentina at this World Cup, and former French skipper Jean-Pierre Rives are kindred souls, men who share an undying romantic passion for their sport.
As
Rives has said, when rugby was created, there were friends together and a ball. Take away the ball but you still have the friends.
It is a simple philosophy but one that sits increasingly uncomfortably in the modern era. As another of this sporting intellectual school, Sir Anthony O'Reilly has said, "the world today is a more vulgar place and rugby football is not about to buck that trend".
What should we see in these romanticists, men who adored rugby's liberal era? What relevance have their views in this brash, new world in which rugby football has embraced professionalism? Should we share or scorn their values, forged deep in past times of traditionalism?
Pichot puts his case eloquently. He accepts he has been one of the favoured ones, the fortunate few able to earn a handsome living from his chosen sport. More essentially, he remains a pragmatist, aware that clocks cannot be turned back in these circumstances.
Nevertheless, he raises important issues that go to the heart of where this game might be in 10 or 20 years time. "Rugby is at a big crossroads, a changing point. It can go anywhere," he says.
"Rugby football is built, like society, with the theoretics of how to live and the economical part that comes with it. You can have a fantasy life and dream of things that you would love but do not touch. On the other hand, how do you construct those dreams? Rugby has the same challenge. Where does it go, how closely does it wish to retain some element of those dreams?
"Rugby in the last five years in England, we know. It is a microcosm of the game that we know by heart. Baron [England's chief executive] against the clubs, clubs against the union, union against the players, the players against all kinds of things, like the media. France has been exactly the same.
"But in that time, rugby has become more focused on the means than the end. It has become the means: how we carry on economically, how we sell more tickets.
"We have forgotten a little bit of what rugby is about. It is not about the thousands of pounds in a player's pocket or the numbers that fill a stadium. It is about the passion that you share when playing, it's about the pleasure you have together. We have to think about this, all of us."
Pichot talks of the superstars; yes, men like him who command high salaries for their skills, well paid players who live in the comfort zone. They live nowadays an almost hermetically-sealed existence, cocooned from critics and reality. They drive to training in their luxury, sponsored cars, train behind locked doors and critical eyes, play matches and are hustled out of sight. No contact with the ordinary supporter. Is this the future we confront? Pichot would like to think not.
"I think that rugby has been forgotten in this process, how it should be done. We are obsessed with advertising campaigns, keeping the press out of reach. Remembering that rugby is first of all a game that should be played with passion and pride has been a victim of this process.
"We should use the rugby jersey not for how much money we can make but to remember we represent other people, maybe a nation."
Isn't that simply a romantic way of lamenting the loss of values common to society and rugby? Pichot smiles. "Perhaps. But our involvement in this game should not be about, 'I will live well and have three cars if I play rugby'. That should not be the thinking because that is not rugby. But I fear we have turned it this way and we are all responsible for that, the IRB, the Unions and the clubs. Everyone.
"But what culture will there be left if you have owners of clubs who have never played rugby and are involved just for money? We might well ask how we have allowed this situation to exist."
That is the easy part of the formula to solve. Poor, weak leadership and judgement lacking vision at too many levels of the game has undermined its traditional roots and values. The absence of a sufficiently powerful, important forum from all fields of the game - administrators, players, media, former officials and plain, ordinary, honest rugby men.
Heavens, above, this game has surely produced sufficient numbers of quality people to have brought together such a cabal of sound minds to chart the game's future.
The truth is, the unseemly scramble to ride in sedan-style comfort down the road of financial riches has meant a desertion of those traditional values. And, Pichot does not deny, he journeys along that road himself.
"I am a professional rugby player, I get paid to play so it is a contradiction to express these views, perhaps. I can tell you I never needed money to play this game, but that won't make sense. But I think it is very necessary to remind rugby of what it could lose."
So the likely denouement? "I think now, that if we don't really put things in order towards values, we are going to lose this game. It will become like soccer. For me, this World Cup is the end of rugby as we knew it."
He is mildly encouraged that for the first time the IRB has called players like him and asked for their views, ahead of a major meeting they will hold in November.
"We are the guys that probably should be running the show in terms of our thinking" he says.
"Not the business but the philosophy. We should be the ambassadors of the sport."
Of course, it would be absurd to pretend that there is only gloom in the modern game.
Not so. For example, the revision of the laws is likely to produce a better spectacle. Many are pleased the game is going in this direction, as it will also re-attract many youngsters (and parents) who are being turned away by the collision-style game we are experiencing.
Surely, there has to be a place for those who carry forward the sport's much admired, traditional values. They could not be in safer hands than the Pumas' erudite No. 9.
Peter Bills is chief rugby correspondent for Independent News & Media in London.
