Kiwis just keep on winning

RUGBY/World Cup 2011: The devil is in the detail, an assertion that may have underscored New Zealand's successful bid to stage the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

The IRB council went into conclave at their offices in Dublin yesterday, and following the stunning elimination of South Africa in the first round of voting in a three-cornered spat, New Zealand usurped the bookmakers' favourite, Japan.

The Kiwis started the day rank outsiders, but by the time the announcement was made by the chairman of the IRB, Syd Millar, a little before 5pm at a south Dublin hotel, they had made the definitive move. Millar said all three bids were exceptional, so it may have come down to minutiae to make that crucial difference.

The presence of New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark for the final presentation yesterday morning will have been noted, especially after she had an extra eight hours added to her journey from the Southern Hemisphere: an engine fault forced her plane to turn around four hours out from New Zealand. She did not let it deter her from fulfilling her commitment to be part of a delegation for the final presentation - she headed for Korea after the announcement - that included NZRFU chairman Jock Hobbs, chief executive Chris Moller, legendary All Black Colin Meads and current captain Tana Umaga.

The active support of a government has a recent historic precedent in helping to facilitate a successful bid, as Tony Blair would no doubt attest in helping to secure the 2012 London Olympics.

Nowhere is rugby more celebrated than New Zealand, but it's hard not to feel that the old school tie has held sway and that once again the IRB are paying no more than lip service to "globalisation" of the game.

Japanese Rugby Football Union president Yoshiro Mori's comments seemed particularly apposite when he suggested: "All the boys in the meeting were saying that we have to make rugby global, so why do we have to wait for another five or 10 years to make this happen? Many people supported our goal of making rugby global. We did not receive the exact vote, but we think that a lot of sympathy was with New Zealand because they weren't able to host the World Cup in 2003."

The latter is a reference to the RWC which the Kiwis were supposed to jointly host with Australia. They refused to guarantee stadiums free from advertising, and so the Australians were handed the whole shooting match.

Japan would have offered a tournament played against a neutral backdrop in terms of potential winners.

In leaving aside the financial merits of each of the three bids and looking at it purely from a playing perspective, the All Blacks should nearly be unbackable on home soil in 2011, something that South Africa might have considered when they gave their votes to New Zealand after being eliminated in the first round of voting.

Australia made no bones about supporting Japan, but others were less forthcoming: an IRB spokesperson was keen to point out that no details of the voting would be revealed in order to protect the "sensitivities" of the losing delegations. It's ludicrous that countries aren't made to announce and therefore stand over the manner in which they vote. Transparency? Not in this aspect of proceedings.

Still, few will quibble with New Zealand. There are no more passionate advocates for rugby union. Hobbs was understandably delighted as he sifted through the emotions of the occasion.

"I think it'll be huge for the game back home, validate and re-affirm the game as our national sport. The whole country will be galvanised behind us to make Rugby World Cup 2011 successful. There'll be so many benefits that will flow from it, not just in terms of rugby but also commercially.

"It's a big day for New Zealand. I don't think there is just one factor involved. This work has been going on for 12 months. We emphasised the key messages, were very sincere about what we had to say and why we believe New Zealand was the right choice to host the World Cup.

"We had a lot of confidence in ourselves, the strategy that we were running, the quality of the people that were involved, the skill, the creativity, the commitment in the whole team. I think for the prime minister to be there in person and make the huge effort that she did to get there and be in uniform with us (was very important)."