Earlier Rugby World Cup

[CultBoy]

Lets say the Rugby World Cup comes into being twenty five years earlier,
The idea orignally was suggested in the fifties but never got off the drawing board.

So for some reason (Think of one if you can) the IRB backs the idea the first is held in 1963, so it doesn't clash with the Footlball World Cup and carries on with another tournament every four years.

Which teams win?
Which teams benefit?
What are the problems?
How is qualifcation worked out?
When is S.Africa allowed in?
How does Rugby/World History change as a result?

 

[Marius]

Lets say the Rugby World Cup comes into being twenty five years earlier,
The idea orignally was suggested in the fifties but never got off the drawing board.

So for some reason (Think of one if you can) the IRB backs the idea the first is held in 1963, so it doesn't clash with the Footlball World Cup and carries on with another tournament every four years.

Which teams win?
Which teams benefit?
What are the problems?
How is qualifcation worked out?
When is S.Africa allowed in?
How does Rugby/World History change as a result?

South Africa will be allowed in from the get-go, and will probably only be banned in the late 70s or early 80s.

 

[Marky Bunny]

I am not enough of a Rugby fan to give a full answer on this. But with my limited knowledge of the game, Wales would probably win in 1971, 1975, and England may have a good chance in 1979 (they won the Grand Slam in the old five nations in 1980).

 

[CultBoy]

I am not enough of a Rugby fan to give a full answer on this. But with my limited knowledge of the game, Wales would probably win in 1971, 1975, and England may have a good chance in 1979 (they won the Grand Slam in the old five nations in 1980).

Got to agree with you there, Wales were to Rugby what Brazil are to Football for large chunks of the 60's and 70's.

Think Wales and the big 3 southern hemisphere nations would domiante to begin with, with Engand & France only making the odd final until at least mid 80s. Then England & France would become the dominate northern sides by early 90's at the latest.

Interstingly I wouldn't put it past one of the Pacific Nations (Fiji, Western Samoa & Tonga) winning a world cup during the 70s or 80s as they were relatively a lot bigger sides back then and didn't lose most of there best players to the New Zealand as much.

 

[Will Ritson]

One of the big questions would be how would this impact on professionalism in the Union game? Rugby league began having World Cups from 1954 onwards (albeit without a set calendar).

I think an earlier Rugby Union World Cup would hasten open professionalism. If this occurred by the early 1970s, when rugby league in England was administered by Bill Fallowfield, I think we could see circumstances that would lead to a catastrophic collapse of rugby league in England. Fallowfield reigned over one of the weakest regimes in rugby league, advocating a return to rugby union rules and bringing the grassroots game into such neglect that it split the sport.

So, from a rugby league fans point of view, an earlier rugby union world cup would lead to a professionalism by 1970 and moves to look at unification of the codes by mid-70s.

When RU did become openly professional in the mid-90s it was against a background of necessity thanks to co-ordinated campaiging from rugby league against the discrimination the 13-man code faced from the English RFU. Professionalism was necessary, and rugby league in the early to mid 90s was stronger both domestically and internationally than it was in the 60s and 70s.

Openly professional rugby union in the 1960s and 1970s, with a strong world cup, would be a very damaging thing for league.

Of course the WI could be rephrased: What if rugby league had got its act together after the first world cup in 1954?

 

[Astrodragon]

Earlier professionalism would help most of the NH countries - certainly Wales would have a longer 'golden era', and the players who helped spark off the professional rebellion by going north in the 90's would have stayed in RU.