Who will be the World Cup Winners?

Grail
By Keith Jenner
November 24 2003

They were trying to understand it all on Breakfast TV on Sunday morning: The previous day had been very strange. England had won a major world cup. The game had been played in good spirits and both teams had been generous in their post match comments.

Even stranger, lots of people had got very drunk during the day, both in this country and in Australia, and nothing had been destroyed. The police hadn't been required and the only injuries the next day were treated with headache pills and alka selzer.

One of the presenters had a little tale to tell. At the football ground which he goes to, the bars are only open before and after the games, and you can't take a drink to your seat. But when Wasps play there the next day, you can drink when you want and, get this, you can sit with opposition supporters!

“Really?!” said the other presenter.

Welcome BBC, and you viewers at home, to the wonderful world of Rugby Union. Hang on in there for a while, you may find some of this strange, but bear with us. This is a world where games are played in a competitive but fair spirit and opposition supporters can share some friendly banter and a beer. This is the way that sport should be. This is the way that sport is, except on the terraces and in the pubs around a few football grounds. This is a world that the BBC has somehow not noticed until now.

Don't worry, I'm not going to get football bashing again, but I just want to make the point that we shouldn't be too smug about the atmosphere in which we can watch Rugby Union. Cricket supporters are in the same position, so are Rugby League fans and followers of countless other sports. We do have a distinct advantage though. Our team has just won the World Cup and the game is having its 15 minutes of fame.

So the fifth Rugby World Cup is over and England are the champions. Let's have a look back and see whether the tournament has been a success and consider its implications for the future. I will try to concentrate on three particular beneficiaries of any success. These are English Rugby, The Premiership teams and Quins in particular.

But before we start, was it a good competition? Was this the best World Cup yet, as was predicted before the tournament started?

I think it probably was. It is obviously difficult to compare with 4 years ago, as that tournament was played in Britain and France and therefore the media interest in the early stages was greater. It will be interesting to hear the views of those who spent time in Australia as to what the atmosphere was like down under.

An obvious problem is that of mismatches in the early stages of the tournament and the small number of teams who have a realistic chance of walking away with the trophy. Very few people gave any team other than England, France and the tri-nations any chance, and South Africa's form in the lead up to the tournament had indicated that they were a fairly forlorn hope. The semi finalists were therefore quite easily predicted, and the tournament was always going to be difficult to promote early on. There were no shock results on the group stages, although there were a number of close matches which shouldn't be forgotten just because the expected team won. It is worth remembering here Samoa against England, Fiji v Scotland, Argentina v Ireland, Wales v New Zealand and Ireland v Australia. With that last match in mind, how different things may have been had Humphreys been successful with his last minute drop goal attempt. England could have faced Australia in the semi-final and the winner of that would have faced New Zealand or Ireland in the final. I'd like to think that the cup would still be coming back to England, but you never know.

The quarter finals featured two close games which were eventually won by the favourites. How relevant was it that New Zealand and France looked convincing in their quarter finals, whilst England and Australia both struggled despite having what looked like the easier games?

So, in the end New Zealand choked when the pressure was really on against a good Australian display and France couldn't cope with England's forwards and Jonny Wilkinsons boot in the rain and I don't think I need to tell you what happened on Saturday do I? England are world champions and deserve to be.

The biggest winners at the end of the tournament are obviously England. It is just the shot in the arm that the game needs if it is to progress in the future. The chances in another four years would have been greatly reduced (it was interesting that in Sundays newspapers, when experts were asked to predict who would win the 2007 competition, nobody went for England). Woodward will have his work cut out to build a new squad capable of retaining the trophy next time. This was England's best ever chance of winning a World Cup and it was crucial that they took it.

Obviously for the players themselves things will be very different from now on. Wilkinson, Johnson and Woodward are surely in line for honours at the end of the year and there will be lucrative contracts to be signed. Maybe Ben Kay will get the Pizza advert too.

A game against the New Zealand Barbarians just before Christmas has now been confirmed and this will be an ideal opportunity to keep the interest going. It looks like the tickets will be made available to the general public who can try out the Twickenham experience for themselves. I don't know who will be playing (it won't be an official test match) but the fans will expect to see at least a few of the World Cup stars. This has to be set against the potential problems with the players being unavailable for their clubs at a time when the Premiership teams will be trying to use them for promotion.

Clive Woodward and Lawrence Dallaglio have both said that they hope the team will stay together until the end of next years Six Nations and I hope that is the case. It will be an opportunity for the players who are on the brink of retirement to go out in front of the northern hemisphere fans and also will allow the other Six Nations countries to try to beat the World Champions. I expect the next Six Nations to be the most publicised yet, and with all the games on the BBC it is a wonderful opportunity to continue to push the sport.

In the longer term, success at an international level always means that more people will want to play a sport and I expect more youngsters to give Rugby a try after this win. It will be a long time before the benefits of this start to show, but this can only be encouraging for the future.

Perhaps the biggest benefit in the short term is that many people have now watched a game of Rugby, and it was a nailbiting, exciting game. The importance of this cannot be overestimated. In order to understand Rugby, you need to watch the whole game. I watched the highlights of the final on Saturday afternoon and I have to question how many people would have been hooked by just watching them. Taken out of the context of the overall game, the highlights after the two tries were just a series of collapsed scrums and penalties being given for offences in rucks. To truly understand how good a game we all saw on Saturday morning you had to sit through it all, as it was happening. 14 Millions of people did just that and, whether they understood the rules, however many tries were scored, people will have been hooked.

So it looks good for the international team, but what about the premiership teams? Domestic Rugby in this country is still very low profile and the clubs will have their work cut out to transfer the increased interest in the national game to bums on seats at Zurich Premiership games.

It is pleasing to see the photos which were taken of the England squad in their club shirts on Sunday and I hope that Premier Rugby can get the message out to potential new supporters that there is good club Rugby on most weekends and the stars can be seen in the flesh on those weekends. I think this is an area which hasn't been publicised enough in the past. For example, I followed England for a number of years before it even occurred to me to watch club Rugby. Had the Premiership been better promoted I could have found myself at The Stoop some years earlier than I did.

I'm sure that all of the clubs are giving thought to how they can promote themselves on the back of this success. It will obviously be important for the players to feature as soon as possible, and I'm sure that people will attend games this weekend just to cheer the World Cup stars even if they aren't playing.

Just as the players get back and the interest is quite high, the Premiership enters a rather fragmented stage with frequent breaks for European games. This will be to the benefit of the teams who are in the Heineken Cup as they will be able to use the fact that opposition teams will also contain World Cup performers to help promote the games.

The premiership teams each have either two or three home games left this year (one European game and either one or two Premiership matches). However, if the Barbarians game does affect player availability on the weekend before Christmas then there is only likely to be one round of Premiership games left which includes a full quota of England players. These are the games played the weekend after Christmas and I can see these matches being targeted by the marketing men. The team who have probably hit the jackpot in this round are Newcastle, who will be visited by a Northampton team potentially featuring Thompson, Dawson and Cohen. It is a shame that clubs will have to wait this long before they can try to build on England's success to increase interest in the Zurich Premiership, especially those, like Quins, who aren't in the Heineken Cup.

Obviously, another factor which will determine which clubs benefit most will be the number and profile of the England players featuring from each team.

Newcastle will no doubt benefit from having Jonny Wilkinson and things also look good for Leicester. Northampton, Wasps and Bath were also well represented and Quins and Sale both had quite high profile players. Unfortunately for Saracens, the fact that Richard Hill never gets the public credit he deserves probably won't be in their favour, whilst I wonder how much Gloucester will benefit, especially as Props often don't get the credit they deserve.

The situation is rather more difficult for Leeds, London Irish and Rotherham. Whilst they will obviously benefit from the general interest in Rugby they will have to rely on opposition teams bringing their World Cup winning stars along and in Rotherham's case this will only go to highlight the gulf in class.

I would also like to mention here the teams below the premiership. It is certainly my hope that they will also benefit from England's success, especially with more interest from potential players. This is crucial for the long term success of the sport.

Overall, there is bound to be a benefit to the club game as a whole, but it will be interesting to see whether some clubs like Leicester and Newcastle get the bulk of the benefits or whether it is evenly spread amongst the teams.

So, do Quins have the potential to benefit more than other clubs? I think that they do, but it won't be easy. Before we delve further let's consider whether it has been a successful World Cup so far for Quins.

Firstly, looking at the league table following the latest round of games I have to say that the club had a wonderful opportunity whilst the World Cup players were away and overall they must be disappointed. It was a close run thing, but I don't think we should be satisfied with sixth place at this stage. A win on Saturday against Bath would have left us in second or third. Admittedly there are only a few points in it, but I think it would have been a massive psychological boost to have been in the top three at this point in the season.

Off the field, Quins did very well with the England v South Africa game and the final itself. The atmosphere at The Stoop for the South Africa match was apparently excellent and has been mentioned in many places. It also appears to have been a successful day on Saturday and the East Stand bar featured, if only for a short time, on the ITV coverage. People have talked about The Stoop as a good place to be and this can only have been a good thing. Some of the people who were there on Saturday won't have been regulars previously and hopefully some of them will come back for a game to two.

Quins haven't been very fortunate with the fixture list, as they have already played a high proportion of their home games, but we are very fortunate to have Will Greenwood and Jason Leonard in the squad. They may not have had the same impact as Wilkinson or Johnson, but Jase has been getting plenty of coverage over the last few days and he will certainly be a draw at The Stoop. Will was rather out of the public eye in the later stages, I assume because of his family problems, but his key tries against South Africa and Wales drew attention early on and he is certainly one of Quins and England's greatest assets.

Finally, perhaps the greatest advantage that Quins have over the other premiership teams is the vast number of potential fans who live within easy travelling distance of The Stoop. The marketing people have an excellent chance to get the name around and hopefully increase interest in Quins. Lets just hope that we don't find ourselves hindered by the size of the ground.

So, overall the World Cup has been a massive success for English Rugby and there is the potential for that benefit to be passed down to the clubs that make up the domestic leagues. At the moment it is only potential, but I would be surprised if it is not realised.

The real question in my mind is whether those rewards will be evenly shared or whether some clubs will benefit more than others. I feel that probably a few teams will get more out of this and we must hope that Mark Evans and his team manage to make Quins one of the big winners.