Test-time for minnows will benefit rugby globally

DISTANCE between the world’s rugby elite and the rest is closing.

Sure, it wouldn’t be a World Cup without a few surprises in the stirring pot to make the tournament extra special – there always is.

But it’s clear the powers of rugby at international level are losing weight over the so-called minnows and the see-saw that measures the rugby dynamic is taking a noticeable shift in direction.

New Zealand, the 2011 tournament hosts and number one team in the order of world rugby, have always set the bar.

And, even if they haven’t lifted the Webb Ellis Cup since the tournament was founded and won by its predecessors 24 years ago, the All Blacks remain hot favourites to end, this year, almost a quarter century of hurt.

Something is changing however. That’s if the opening round of the 2011 RWC was anything to go by.

There has been, and is, a real battle of the classes in rugby but hopefully that has been unsettled.

If New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa are the kings of the rugby kingdom, England, France, Wales, and Ireland are certainly its princes.

But an uprising from the “lower-tiered” teams – the Romanians, the Japanese, the Americans, the Canadians – have all shown this hierarchy should be banished.

Argentina removed the shackles last time out, conquering France in the opening game of the 2007 RWC and going on to a semi-final tussle with impending champions South Africa.

And if they have shown ability to survive on the scraps and leftovers from their superiors’ table, like Argentina other hungrier nations should be given the time, the chances, and ultimately the respect to develop their rugby too, so to compete at the highest levels.

One test match is not enough in a World Cup year for a side like Argentina, and although they have been granted admission to a new Four Nations tournament in 2012, if they are really being taken seriously on the international stage, surely this would have come sooner.

They pushed England on Saturday in a test they probably should have won but lost by four.

England feared the power of the Pumas, including noticeably more of its squad’s piano shifters rather than piano players, leaving out some more delicate men, who are not big in nature but know how to win rugby games.

There are far too many to list them all.

Time spent realising their best 15 in five Six Nations tests was wasted in the squad’s World Cup warm ups with Wales, twice, and then Ireland.

Martin Johnson, who was finally taking chances on new blood, has regressed in his thinking and turned to the safety of selecting household names – a security list he has tucked in his back pocket for rainy days like Saturday.

Wales, on the other hand, have learnt from their 2007 heartache and left out a number of old heads who have served their country well in the past but can’t take it forward any further.

Inexperience was the only ingredient lacking in Wales’ stunning performance against South Africa on Sunday and they would have won if not for some cutting edge.

But the squad is vibrant and, more importantly, fit, both at the breakdown and with ball in hand. To beat the Springboks, the ball must be moved at some pace and Wales knew that as many of its own showed the same for the Lions in the summer of 2009.

There has been an interlude for the last eight years that has made that difficult to replicate. Nations, barring the best down under, have manufactured many brutes from a construction line of muscle-wielding ball-crashers without rugby brains; the intimidating to look at who lose everything intelligent.

Meanwhile the truly creative have been left ignored and worse still – forgotten.

New Zealand are the best in the business because they trust a depth and breadth of knowledge they have on the field.

They protect their youth and introduce it at the right times; not when they can fill jerseys, size 52” chest, and can break through brick walls, but only when they are ready, 100%.

Talent is nurtured with the ball first, the gym second.

For the most part, rugby took a step backwards when it lost this philosophy and decided to take science to extremes rugby shouldn’t need to know.

New Zealand win games because they have raw talent.

If this is adopted across the globe, more will benefit from their way of thinking.