From 19 countries, 570 men have travelled to New Zealand knowing they carry the hopes and dreams of their rugby loving compatriots. Awaiting them in the spiritual home of the sport are 30 All Blacks.
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HeraldScotland will be providing special early morning coverage from the big games at the World Cup, beginning on Friday with New Zealand v Tonga, and then on Saturday when Scotland open their campaign against Romania.
It will not be the biggest rugby World Cup in terms of attendances or commercial revenues. Nor will it have the political significance of the 1995 tournament when South African sport was re-admitted to the global stage. However, nowhere will it ever matter more to the citizens of the home country.
New Zealand’s bid team knew it was a crucial time to strike when they were chasing the votes of International Rugby Board delegates six years ago. A tournament that is now surpassed in sporting importance only by the soccer equivalent and by the Olympic Games has grown beyond recognition since the country co-hosted the inaugural event with Australia in 1987. The clear message from past experience is that this is a tournament best staged in a single country. In terms of infrastructure, this was almost certainly New Zealand’s last chance.
The campaign fell just short of emotional blackmail but, while there were sound logistical reasons that other bids should have prevailed, few who have rugby’s best interests at heart would dispute that this opportunity had to be given to the tiny land that has done so much to take the sport to the world.
New Zealand’s relatively small size and the depth with which the sport is embedded in the culture is bound to generate an intensity of interest which has the potential to be either inspirational or overpowering for the host nation.
After another period between World Cups in which they have at times looked almost invincible how utterly intriguing that, in the final week of build-up matches, there has been some evidence that the pressure is beginning to tell on Richie McCaw, Dan Carter and their team-mates.
Australia’s victory in the Tri-Nations, only the third time they have won the title in the competition’s 16-year history, could even be interpreted as suggesting that this is the most vulnerable All Black side to head into a World Cup in the professional era. No previous World Cup since the sport went open in 1995 has been preceded by anything other than an All Black victory in the Tri-Nations. Clearly their management had a plan when it sent a second string side to South Africa in the penultimate round of matches, but they surely still expected to win the title.
However, the threat posed by Robbie Deans, the former Canterbury Crusaders coach who is now in charge of the Wallabies and who many of his countrymen would prefer to see running the All Blacks, is suddenly very real.
That debate, though, is for the latter stages of the tournament. First come the pool stages and there is reason to believe that we will witness some stunning matches.
Some great traditional rivalries will be renewed, not least the South Seas encounter between Fiji and Samoa.
Most enticing of all will be the first staging of the oldest match in international rugby on neutral territory in the final round of matches when Scotland meet England in a potential a Pool B decider in Auckland.
The old rivals must also face Argentina, the team of the 2007 tournament, while Richie Dixon, the former Scotland coach who is now in charge of Georgia, believes his physically imposing, largely French-based team, is capable of an upset.
For Wales, taking into account the horrors they have been exposed to by the Islanders in the past, such as losing to Samoa when they were hosting the tournament in 1999 and, worse still, suffering a defeat to Fiji four years ago that ruled them out of the knockout stages, what could be worse than having to face both this time.
As they seek to become the first team to retain the World Cup, the Tri-Nations form of the Springboks has been so indifferent that they, too, must be more than a little bit concerned about the daunting task of qualifying from a treacherous-looking Pool D.
Pool A looks like it will be relatively straightforward, coming down to a decider between the hosts and France, the team that has ejected New Zealand from two previous World Cups, albeit the All Blacks may have to be a little bit careful about which players they expose to a fired-up Tongan side in the tournament opener on September 9.
Australia can, meanwhile, be expected to negotiate their safe passage from Pool C. However, who accompanies them into the last eight is up for discussion, taking into account a combination of the age-profile of Ireland’s key players, their form coming into the tournament, having lost all four of their warm-up matches and their history of under-performance at World Cups.
To date Italy have yet to beat the Irish since they joined the Six Nations Championship. They have, however, defeated Scotland several times, Wales on a couple of occasions and now France, making that result dangerously overdue.
What is guaranteed is that every match will be played in a pulsating atmosphere. There are 12 host cities from Whangarei towards the top of the North Island, to Invercargill, the last stopping off point for Antarctic expeditions where Scotland will start their campaign against Romania and Georgia.However, the claim in New Zealand’s bid document that this would be one massive stadium of four million people was as close to true as any such hype can ever get.
Something approaching 100,000 visiting supporters are expected across the course of the tournament and they will find them thrust into an environment that will never be recreated.
The spiritual home of the sport is the sole host of the World Cup for the first and probably last time. New Zealand expects while the rest of us can enjoy what will be a unique two months of rugby.
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