Bid to bridge gap between rugby’s rich and poor

THE International Rugby Board (IRB) is already looking at ways to make the next World Cup more competitive after a disappointing start to this tournament.

While the overall standard of international rugby continues to improve, the opening round of matches at the World Cup showed the gap between the rich and poor was expanding rather than closing. The results of the first three days followed the same old script of the game's traditional powers crushing their weaker opponents.

The IRB, facing the real prospect the rest of the pool phase will also be dominated by predictable, lopsided matches, says it needs to act to ensure the next World Cup is more competitive.

"Over the past four years or so what we've been doing is trying to get more nations playing rugby. We've done that as we now have 96 members of the IRB," chief executive Mike Miller explained.

"Over the next four to eight years we have to go with a slightly different approach we need to begin to target our money more strategically. We need to bring the next five or six nations to a similar standard to the top five or six. If we can do that we won't see as many of these lopsided scores."

The eight matches played over the first weekend were won by the southern hemisphere giants Australia, New Zealand and South Africa and the original Five Nations, France, Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland.

New Zealand, France, England and South Africa all racked up in excess of 60 points each while Wales, Ireland and Scotland all collected bonus points for scoring at least four tries.

Miller said rugby needed to improve the overall standards if it ever hoped to have a competition like the soccer World Cup.

"It's going to take time," Miller said. "We've been professional only eight years but we would like to get to the point where 10 to 12 teams could win."