IF World Rugby is somehow going to turn the 2031 World Cup in the USA into a rip-roaring success it is going to have to move faster than Louis Bielle-Biarrey. The sense that things are not going to plan were in plain sight a few weeks ago when World Rugby chief executive Alan Gilpin made a pitch to his Six Nations counterparts to stage matches from Europe’s showcase tournament in America.
There was a whiff of desperation about Gilpin’s request, indicating that the optimism of taking the World Cup to the USA when it was rubber-stamped by World Rugby in 2022 – with ...