KEY POINTS:
PARIS - Who will be the World Cup's leading fly-half? Daniel Carter, Stephen Larkham, Jonny Wilkinson, Frederic Michalak?
But Emil Vartazarian? Definitely not this time, but maybe 2011.
Vartazarian tried in vain to steer India to what would have been an unlikely place at the World Cup.
He was just like 86 other fly-halfs from rugby's outposts who started out on the long qualifying road which kicked off at humble Molt Illustre Conseille General on September 4, 2004 with Andorra running out 76-3 winners over Norway.
Two years, six months and 21 days later, that qualifying series finished at the Estadio Parque Central del Club Nacional in Montevideo, where Uruguay were pipped for the final place in France by Portugal.
In that time, 191 matches were held over 932 days to determine which 12 teams would join the eight automatic qualifiers in France.
Vartazarian's India were one of the teams to fall by the wayside but they managed to secure a first win on home soil in the process when they defeated Malaysia 48-12.
That brief success highlighted the very different worlds that Vartazarian and the likes of All Blacks superstar Carter inhabit.
"I arrived in Calcutta in 1987 from Iran when I was 10. In the Armenian college every individual had to play rugby as it was like a religion for us, so I started playing," said Vartazarian.
India's loss to Kazakhstan and a draw with Guam sealed their fate as far as 2007 was concerned. The Kazakhs eventually lost to Sri Lanka who lost to Hong Kong who then lost to qualifiers Japan.
Another team not in France are China and the game's money men are probably wishing it were otherwise.
China were never in the hunt in qualifying with an opening 22-19 win over Taiwan followed by defeats to the Arabian Gulf, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong.
That woeful record hasn't stopped the Chinese from thinking big with officials having drafted in the likes of England's 2003 World Cup winning skipper Martin Johnson for coaching clinics.
"I saw the Chinese national team play in Dubai, and I didn't really know what to expect, but was very impressed with them," said Johnson.
Rugby union is still very much an infant sport in China.
The first club was started only in 1990 at China's Agriculture University with the CRFA being formed six years later and becoming affiliated with the governing International Rugby Board in 1997.
China are currently ranked 45 in the world while India are 84.
Propping up the IRB world rankings is Bosnia and Herzogvina who played two qualifiers and lost both to Austria (29-12 and 10-7) and have only been playing as a national team since 1992.
But at least they are on the list.
War-torn Afghanistan can only dream of such modest achievements.
In Herat, close to the Iran border, touch rugby is the order of the day with a shortage of players and space, as well as the ongoing strife, limiting the development of the game.
Unlike the high profile teams at the World Cup, teams in Afghanistan have to rely on donations from all over the world - training gear from Gosforth in England, t-shirts from Newcastle and balls from the Rugby Football Union.
A far cry from the big-money sophistication about to grace the finals in France.
- AFP
