Irish Examiner view: Rugby’s great jamboree has problems to solve

As Ireland limbers up for the Rugby World Cup, the sport must resolve not to let refereeing controversy and officials poring over TVs dominate the narrative

Rob Herring getting stuck in during Friday's Ireland Rugby Squad training session in Tours, France, ahead of the 2023 Rugby World Cup. Picture: Dan Sheridan/Inpho

When hosts France run out to tackle the All Blacks in the Stade de France in Saint-Denis this Friday night, they will usher in what could be the greatest World Cup in rugby history. And at the same time, it may be marked as a tournament the likes of which we will never see again.

The competition in 2019 — how distant and different those pre-covid, pre-Ukraine War, pre-inflation days now seem — was introduced by the kind of extreme weather event with which we have become uncomfortably familiar. The super typhoon Hagibis wiped out three of the group-stage matches.