Ireland already casting an eye towards Rugby World Cup 2023
About six weeks ago, with the prospect of an All-Ireland Champions Cup final still on the cards, I checked the availability of flights from Cork to Edinburgh.
To my delight there were plenty of seats available on the Aer Lingus commuter, flying out on the Friday and back at Sunday lunch time. Great.
When I proceeded into the booking phase however, I understood why. Total cost of that round trip — €734. You can now fly from Cork to Boston for less than that.
Then again I shouldn’t have been surprised. The same thing happens every second year when Ireland play Scotland at Murrayfield.
It’s the same with all sporting events. At this late stage you won’t get a room in Wellington next month, in the week the Lions face the local Super Rugby franchise the Hurricanes followed by the second test four days later, for less than €650 a night.
With Ireland’s 2023 World Cup bid sharply coming into focus let’s hope that, should we be successful in attracting the third biggest event in the sporting calendar globally, our hotels don’t lose the run of themselves. Then again, tried getting a hotel room in Dublin recently?
As for the Champions Cup final itself, it’s amazing how your interest wains without an Irish presence.
That said, I’m sure nobody would begrudge Clermont Auvergne and in particular their longest serving player Aurelian Rougerie — with the club over 20 years — lifting the trophy after years of disappointment in this tournament.
Their supporters are the best I have come across in France, with five separate visits to the Stade Marcel Michelin over the years to watch Munster and Leinster cemented in the memory bank. How they’d love to parade that trophy around the Place de Jaude in the city centre.
I would love to see it happen. Problem is they are not an 80-minute team and tend to play in fits and starts.
That won’t be good enough to beat a Saracens side whose defensive bite won’t offer the French the morale-boosting start they received against Leinster in their semi-final.
With five Lions in their pack, they also have the capacity to deal with the threat Clermont pose up front.
Speaking of the rugby World Cup, by the time you read this, the pool draw for the 2019 event in Japan should be in the public domain.
That took place earlier today in the historic setting of Kyoto’s Guest House, a national symbol in Japan having hosted meetings of global importance, including the 2016 G7 summit of world leaders.
Once that draw is completed, the next major focus for the sports governing body, World Rugby, will be the announcement of the identity of the 2023 host nation.
While today’s draw will prove the driving force in Joe Schmidt’s agenda for the next two years, that decision on November 15 next could prove the most significant in Irish rugby.
Playing in the event is one thing, hosting it something completely different.
Even more important this time out is the fact that World Rugby is set to reveal their preferred choice — a straight shootout between France, Ireland, and South Africa with South Africa receiving a timely boost yesterday with their department of sport and recreation lifting its ban on staging international tournaments — a month in advance of the vote undertaken by the delegates representing the various unions. That has never happened before.
How significant will it prove?
Word is that the recent site visits and the logistical issues posed by World Rugby on their reconnaissance trip around Ireland went very well but, even with the endorsement of the games governing body, the outcome will remain shrouded in mystery until the vote proper.
From a Cork perspective, the stakes could not be higher. Not only is the impressive, soon to be complete, revamp at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in line for some pool fixtures, it is also scheduled to host two of the four World Cup quarter finals.
For a city starved of top quality rugby, what a boost that would prove. It would also open the door for Munster to follow that lead and generate higher revenue streams by exploring the possibility of playing Champions Cup quarter-final or semi-finals there, as Leinster do at the Aviva Stadium.
I couldn’t help but wonder, having watched a few Super Rugby clashes over the weekend, if the Lions are lucky or unlucky to be touring New Zealand next month.
Given the famous touring party is all about the best of the best, the fact the Lions are taking on the current World Cup holders and number one side in the game fits the profile better.
Had this tour been scheduled for Australia, as it was four years ago, then the interest in the series might not be anywhere near as heightened, given the state of Australian rugby at present.
Last Saturday I watched one of their leading provincial sides, the Queensland Reds, being ripped apart 46-17 by the Waikato Chiefs with Leinster’s new signing, New Zealand Maori winger James Lowe, having a stormer.
The Lions play the Chiefs on the Tuesday before their opening test in Auckland. That’s going to be a massively challenging week for Warren Gatland’s squad having faced the Maori All Blacks in Rotorua three day earlier.
Immediately after that comprehensive Chiefs win over the Reds in New Plymouth the Waratahs, Australia’s leading Super rugby side, entertained the Auckland Blues, the fifth ranked New Zealand team in the tournament, in Sydney.
It was 0-26 to the Blues at half time and 12-40 at one stage in the second-half before the Waratahs saved some face, in front of their ever dwindling home fan base, with a spirited comeback before eventually going down 33-40.
That win was the 17th successive victory by a New Zealand side over their Australian counterparts in the competition this season, marking a 100% return. Australian rugby is in disarray and wouldn’t be able to compete with the strength in depth of the Lions.
The picture in South Africa isn’t much better. Over the last two years the Springboks have lost to Japan and Italy while Ireland won a test there for the first time in history last June.
Three of their Super rugby side also took on New Zealand opposition over the weekend and lost all three, despite the fact two of those were played in South Africa.
Had the Lions been scheduled to travel there this summer, then you would be comfortably predicting a series win for the Lions and an unbeaten run through the non-test games.
Contrast that with the fact nine of the 10 games the Lions face in June and July are likely to prove challenging, with no room for error.
What’s more, the provincial teams the Lions will face early on will be allowed select their international players, in contrast to what happened on the last two tours, when South Africa and Australia both kept all their players in camp and held them back for the test series.
That did enable the tourists to build momentum but left them slightly undercooked going into the opening test. That certainly won’t be the case this time out.
The ambush is already in place.
