World Cup just too big for Ireland on its own

LIKELY as not, it isn’t going to happen. Put away your glad-rags and handbags, the party’s off. South Africa secured preferred bidder status in the technical evaluation and with that Ireland’s Rugby World Cup 2023 bid has been left “in tatters”, as one national newspaper put it.

The IRFU, the organising committee and the Government have tried to put a positive spin on it. Dick Spring, the bid chairman, stated that “We’re still in there and we’re up for the fight.”

Well he’s got to say that doesn’t he? No question the former Tánaiste knows more about the ins and the outs of this process than we do, but the consensus both here and aboard is that Ireland, which came home a distant third behind South Africa and France, won’t be hosting the event. What a shame.

It could have been something special. Can you imagine it, the eyes of the world (well the rugby world at any rate) upon us? Best foot forward, let’s throw a party for our guests and ourselves. Let’s do what Ireland does best, open our arms to the world.

The greatest shame of all is that this was pretty much our one and only shot. The growth of the tournament is such that as time goes on it becomes increasingly unlikely that Ireland would be large enough to host it.

If and when Ireland do bid again it’ll likely be in concert with our Scottish and Welsh cousins. That would have its positives too, the financial burden would be shared for one thing, but it wouldn’t be our World Cup, it wouldn’t be what 2023 could have been.

A three nation tournament wouldn’t have need for places like Fitzgerald Stadium. In World Rugby’s report the size of the town of Killarney – a population of just 14,000 – was cited as a concern.

Call us biased but they took Killarney’s strength and turned it to a weakness. Fair enough a technical evaluation should focus on technical considerations, but even so there should be a place for a more, shall we say, bijou venue, especially for category C and D games.

Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better, but that does seem to be the way the event is going.

If the games are restricted to big cities and big stadia, the tournament risks becoming just another event in those said same cities and said same stadia.

That was a concern raised during England 2015. In a bustling metropolis like London the World Cup was nothing much out of the ordinary, the world turned one way or another. If you didn’t know it was on, you wouldn’t necessarily have done, if you get our meaning.

On the other-hand had Killarney got the nod – and maybe it still might as unlikely as that seems now – there would have been a carnival atmosphere in beauty’s home. If there’s one thing they know how to do in Killarney it’s make people feel welcome.

Unfortunately the likely failure of the bid – and blame doesn’t attach itself to anybody, the bid was likely the best it could be under the circumstances – means we’ll never find out what a Rugby World Cup match in Killarney might have been like. We’ll just have to make do with a Munster final every other year.

Of course, not everybody is left bereft by the news that Ireland might not be hosting the World Cup. To a certain (small) number of people it was simply too expensive an endeavour for the country to embark upon at a time of relative crisis, especially when it comes to health and housing.

Look everybody is entitled to their opinion, but it always struck us as a particularly trite and frankly contrarian view to take. The Government agreed to underwrite the bid and the event to the tune of €120m.

There’s every chance that by the end of the World Cup the Government would have liabilities of at least that much if not a little more. Put it at a conservative €200m (not including any money spent on much needed infrastructure projects). Granted €200m is not an insignificant sum of money, but it’s not going to solve the housing crisis, it’s not going to solve the crisis in the health service.

In the larger scheme of things €200m isn’t that much money. The cost of servicing our national debt alone runs into several billions per annum. This wouldn’t be like Greece spending stupid money to host the Olympics, nothing like it in fact.

At the end of a decade and-a-half of hard-times, there’s nothing wrong with spending a few quid on ourselves. The Romans would have understood it. The people need more than bread alone, they also need circuses.

Maybe it’s just us, but opposing that feels a lot more like than virtue-signalling anything more

keenly felt.