World Rugby is being urged to help bridge the widening north-south financial divide by confirming Australia as the host nation of the 2027 men’s Rugby World Cup.
The Australian bid team also believe their principal rivals, the United States, would be a better option to stage the 2031 tournament.
- Bid team suggest rival US option would be better for 2031
- Top rugby league players could be tempted to switch codes
Before Saturday’s Cook Cup fixture at Twickenham, Rugby Australia’s chairman Hamish McLennan has further raised the ante, suggesting that leading rugby league players could be tempted to switch codes if a “golden decade” of sporting events in Australia, including a British & Irish Lions tour in 2025, also included the first World Cup to be held in the country since 2003.
McLennan has already confirmed that when Australia makes its formal bid presentation in a fortnight’s time it will make clear the global game could suffer if World Cups are only awarded to the richest nations. “We have made that argument,” said McLennan. “If World Cups just oscillate between one or two countries then I think it defeats the purpose. It feels right that after France in 2023 it comes south. I just think it’s good for the global game.”
World Rugby is known to want to take a major tournament to the United States but McLennan says it would make more sense to wait until the Eagles national team is more consistently competitive. “Rugby is still a relatively immature sport in the US and they’ve still got to build a team up. You saw the recent 104-14 score between the All Blacks and the US Eagles. I think they need time to invest in their team and build their stocks up.”
Australian rugby also faces its own battle to retain audiences in an increasingly competitive domestic market but McLennan claims high-profile league players would be more likely to transfer to the 15-a-side code if a World Cup was held on their doorstep. “We’re seeing rugby league players looking at our calendar,” he revealed.
“We’ve got a Lions tour in 2025 and, potentially, a World Cup in 2027 leading into an Olympics in 2032. Some of these guys are putting their hands up and saying: ‘We want to be part of that.’ They realise the potential that exists.”
With the final hosting decision to be taken next May, Australian officials say no firm decision has been taken on where a 2027 final might be held, with Perth, Melbourne and Sydney all viewed as candidates. McLennan, however, says Rugby Australia would be open to the 2025 Lions itinerary incorporating a Test against a Pacific Island nation and that they would also be open to hosting a women’s Lionesses tour.
The former World Cup-winning hooker Phil Kearns, meanwhile, has admitted the Wallabies must raise their game if they want to end Eddie Jones’s unbeaten run against his home nation since taking over as England’s head coach. “They have been better than us for probably all of those games,” said Kearns. “That’s a hard pill to swallow [but] it’s a completely natural thing for Eddie to want to do: to beat the nation he once coached. He just wants to win … he’s a competitive guy, he drives his team hard and he’s very successful. How do you knock that?”
Bristol have confirmed the signing of Sale’s American international fly-half AJ MacGinty for the 2022-23 season. The move will reunite the 31-year-old with his former coach Pat Lam, with whom he helped steer Connacht to the Pro12 title in 2016.
Story first published on The Guardian