Rugby driving us to drink with crazy World Cup plan

FIRST football, now rugby. Both trying to squeeze a pint of liquid into a half-pint glass. And to hell with the mess. Plans to stage the Rugby World Cup every two years are, quite frankly, nuts. About as ill-advised, in fact, as FIFA’s dalliance with transforming the world’s biggest football tournament into a biennial competition. But here’s the problem with calling out such obvious lunacy. The most salient arguments may yet be drowned out by the steady pinging of contactless card machines. If you don’t seriously think anyone involved in the running of international rugby would take such reckless risks, take a look at their counterparts in the beautiful game. FIFA’s two wealthiest confederations, those covering Europe and South America, are obviously opposed to changing the calendar. But the governing bodies overseeing Asia, Africa and North/Central America, as well as the Caribbean, are either supportive or open-minded about the best international teams coming together every other summer. Or winter. Whatever pays most. A concept that should never have received a second thought, in other words, remains very much a live issue.

Rugby Union, still a relative rookie in the world of professional sport, is currently caught between a need to preserve traditions — great for marketing purposes — and a desire to rake in rivers of cash. So it’s going to be interesting, watching the blazers crack the code needed to double the frequency of World Cups. Even without factoring in club competitions, the calendar is already packed with established tournaments such as the Six Nations and Rugby Championship. Not to mention autumn Tests, lucrative summer tours by individual nations and, of course, those Lions series once every four years. But, sure, we’ll just shoehorn another seven-week tournament — well in excess of a two-month commitment, once training camps are included — into the match list every second year. As one groundbreaking Canadian actor with a rank-rotten Scottish accent might have put it, ye cannae change the laws of physics. To put that in terms familiar to anyone who has ever played a drinking game in a rugby clubhouse, the game’s rulers are trying to pour a pint of IPA into a shot glass. Classic.