RWC bid - Philip Browne: ‘We are hitting the buttons on a range of criteria’

Philip Browne doesn’t do extremes of emotion or hyperbole.

Picture: At the Royal Garden Hotel in South Kensington London for the 2023 Rugby World Cup bid presentation were bid chairman Dick Spring, IRFU chief executive Philip Browne, president Philip Orr and rugby legend Brian O’Driscoll, along with the rest of the Irish delegation. Picture: Billy Stickland/Inpho

So, take it as an encouraging sign that the IRFU chief executive stood in a hallway of the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington yesterday lunchtime reasoning that the Irish bid to host the 2023 Rugby World Cup was in a “reasonable state”.