Brendan Gallagher feature: England apart, this has been a World Cup to remember!

So how will history view Rugby World Cup 2015? The biggest and grandest in terms of crowd numbers and stadia? Unquestionably, and it was probably the noisiest as well with an avalanche of great rugby to shout about. The autumn months can be unreliable in Britain but the weather was nigh on perfect as well and contributed to the general feelgood factor while the £150m profits will also leave a warm glow for the game’s administrators.
But the best World Cup ever? Well that depends on your definition of best. It lacked the political significance and Hollywood glamour of 1995 – although we might never experience that again – and you could also argue that ultimately it bordered on the predictable. Quizzed before the tournament’s start most pundits predicted that New Zealand would play the winners of Pool A in the final and that’s exactly how it panned out. Mind you only five sides have ever reached a Rugby World Cup final.
RWC2015 also missed the galvanising narrative that comes when the host nation is involved at the sharp end of the tournament. As I wandered down from Twickenham station to the stadium on that glorious autumnal Sunday morning before the Australia-Argentina semi-final, with the Pumas fans already singing and partying and the vendors’ barbecues firing up you couldn’t help wonder what might have been.
In 2003, when lucky enough to be in Australia, I heard tale of how the nation came together on those big knock-out weekends and looked forward to experiencing something similar. For England as a nation it never happened.
This World Cup also demonstrated in the harshest possible way the widening gulf between the Southern and Northern Hemisphere teams. Fitter, faster, more skilled, ambitious, consummate – the four semi-finalists from the Rugby Championship showed up the Six Nations exactly for what it is. A much loved but extremely tired and complacent tournament that badly needs a revamp. Southern Hemisphere rugby has got the wind in its sails and European rugby needs to respond, which above all else means restoring the proper order of things. Country first and clubs second. For too long now the tail has been wagging the dog.
And yet no matter how many caveats you log in the debit column – and we haven’t even touched on the subject of refereeing inconsistencies yet – I still believe that overall RWC2015 was an utter triumph. It certainly sets a bench mark in terms of scale, scope and visibility that future World Cup must aspire to. RWC2015 did indeed take the tournament to another level, it will be seen as a key staging post in the game’s development.
The crowds were magnificent and wonderfully cosmopolitan and meshed beautifully with the heartening ultra-positive approach from most teams. It was very energising. The Tier Two nations – horrid expression, we must find something less judgmental and snotty – are visibly narrowing the gulf between themselves and their so-called betters and the overall standard was just higher.
Cracking games became almost the norm at RWC2015 whereas they stood out by virtue of their novelty in 2011. The huge mismatches have gone and although probably only Japan and Georgia won games they were expected to lose, the minnows were competitive for much longer and showed infinitely more ambition and class, scoring hordes of cracking tries.

The mood was set at the opening night at Twickenham on September 18, six weeks ago although it feels like six months such has been the intensity of the action and diversity of the storylines. The paying public spoke – loud, good humoured and supportive of the tournament not just England – and the short opening ceremony reflected that.  Noisy, slightly quirky, lots of fireworks, good-natured. Let the party begin.
Alas England missed their cue. They were unconvincing in their warm-up games, the needless Sam Burgess soap opera was a diversion, and the evident decline from the heights of their final Six Nations game against France had already set alarm bells ringing and their seemingly comfortable win over Fiji brought little comfort. Twickenham was absolutely buzzing, yet, other than Mike Brown, none of the England team embraced that occasion and tapped into the electricity. Rather than step up a gear they went down a couple which felt ominous. World Cups usually inspire but occasionally they can inhibit.
It certainly inspired Georgia and Japan when they marched to famous victories over Tonga and South Africa the following day. I wish I could say: “I was there,” when the oh-so Brave Blossoms went for broke at the end at the Brighton Community Stadium but I, along with hundreds of others, was sitting spellbound in front of the screens at the Twickenham press centre.
For the last two minutes a very English voice started booming out mantra-like from the back of the room. “They are going do it, this is Japan’s game, they are going to win.” He never missed a beat and as Karne Hesketh flashed over in the corner I looked around and there was a beaming Andy Gomarsall – for it was he – clenching his fist in delight. Nothing against South Africa – we love ’em to bits – but for a few minutes we had all turned Japanese.
The following day dawned and more rugby heaven, this time as part of an astonishing 89,000-plus crowd for the Pumas’ match against New Zealand. The game crackled from start to finish and I was privileged to be present at both of Wembley’s record breaking World Cup matches. Built, obviously, as the home of England football it is, ironically, the most perfect rugby arena on the planet. Massive but intimate, huge but in your face. Perfect viewing wherever you are, it hasn’t got a roof but the noise is very contained and ear splitting. It’s a phenomenal rugby venue. No wonder Romania scrum-half Florin Surugiu felt moved to go down on one knee on the sacred turf after the
Ireland match a week later and ask his girlfriend to marry him.
And so we settled into the pool stage. As we suspected nothing was ever going to quite match Japan’s miracle win but the thrilling thought never left us and there was plenty to occupy our attention. There was good, often outstanding, rugby everywhere you looked and the crowds roared their approval.
Every single occasion at Kingsholm was an occasion in itself, Milton Keynes was a joy, Sandy Park fun, Newcastle was party central.
Inevitably though Pool A attracted the main attention as England fought it out with Wales and Australia and still failed to pick up the vibe. After stern corrective years of trying to do the right thing, resisting temptation and being model citizens they had forgotten how to let their hair down and live close to the edge. They went about their work in earnest enough fashion but there was no panache or excitement.
Despite all that England actually had the beating of Wales before a collective failure of nerve in the final 20 minutes when injured Welsh bodies were being evacuated to a place of safety and replacements being hurried on.
Just when England needed to go for the jugular they demonstrated a loathing of blood sports. And even then England, again betraying a lack of rugby intelligence, spurned the opportunity of a draw in the forlorn hope of rescuing the win they should already have nailed down.
England’s ‘campaign’ terminated the following week, just 15 days after it started, when they were routed by Australia. At least it wasn’t close. It’s the hope that kills you but on this occasion England were a distant, and outclassed, second. For the remainder of the tournament – a full month – English rugby was reduced to doing the washing up and putting the bins out at their own party.
A massive word of praise though for the England 2015 team who continued as perfect hosts, smiling their way through the disappointment. Their tournament was a triumph even if their team badly misfired.
Before moving on from that England-Australia game we should tarry a while on just about the nastiest act of foul play at the tournament, namely when Australia’s Michael Hooper lined up Mike Brown, below, from fully ten yards away and took him out with a crude no arms shoulder first tackle, or the so-called clear-out which doesn’t actually exist in law. It was a shocker and deserved a month’s ban minimum but predictably he only got a one-week suspension.
The following week officialdom also offered a Nelsonian eye when David Pocock blatantly kneed a Welsh player in the stomach and escaped a citing. I can offer no logical explanation as to why these two offences were not properly dealt with and can only sympathise with schoolmasters and youth coaches trying to explain what is and isn’t considered foul play on a rugby pitch these days.
Tier One players escaping cards and/or citings or being treated with undue leniency when actually found guilty was the one genuinely disappointing aspect of RWC2015.
Officialdom’s attitude to the smaller nations was draconian while often Tier One nations were treated with kid-gloves and overcoming such attitudes is one of the last great barriers to be broken down if rugby is to truly become a global game.
And suddenly the quarter-finals.  Some rather arrogantly claimed that the real competition was just beginning, rather presumptive as 40 of the 48 games had already been played and many of us were already missing the Japanese, Fijians, Georgians and many others. Still there is no denying that a Rugby World Cup quarter-final weekend is always pretty special.
There was a steely glint in New Zealand’s eye all week in Cardiff ahead of their “clash” with France at the Millennium Stadium. They were on a mission after the national disgrace of defeat against the same opponents at the same ground eight years ago and pre-match I thought France would be lucky to keep the margin to 30.
As it happened a supercharged All Blacks romped home 62-13 which was impressive even by their own stellar standards. Andrew Mehrtens described French defenders left in the wake of Julian Savea as “road kill” and frankly he wasn’t far wrong.
South Africa squeezed past a brave but battered Wales who at least departed having left everything on the pitch while the Pumas let rip with an extraordinary 43-20 win over an Ireland side that had also felt the strain physically and were missing key players. The Pumas produced 20 minutes of rugby from the gods at the start and conjured up a stunning final quarter to apply the coup de grace.
In between times Ireland, fighting for their World Cup lives, managed to drag the Pumas into a dog-fight up front and clawed their way back into the game. Oh the irony of it, until recently Argentina would have welcomed such deployment of the heavy artillery but they are a “total rugby” side these days, happier backing their skills and panache rather than relying on boot and bite.
Which brings us to Scotland and Australia and that final-minute decision from Craig Joubert which “cost” Scotland a semi-final place. It did and it didn’t. It was a massively important call which he – and his assistant refs who provided no back-up whatsoever – got wrong when the technology existed for the correct call to be made.
Scrum Australia for a Scotland knock on, not offside accidental or otherwise. They are the facts that Scottish supporters will rightly take to their grave although they should also reflect that it was a complete Horlicks of a Scotland lineout which led to the incident and had they executed better they would have been masters of their own fate.
Joubert’s sprinting from the scene of the action – Scotland supporters prefer the word crime – was ill advised and will dog him for the rest of his career. It demonstrated an agitated state of mind – did he realise he had made a howler or did he fear some sort of incident with aggrieved Sottish players? – but it’s not how rugby conducts itself and in so doing he lost the deep well of sympathy and understanding the vast majority of rugby fans feels for referees under siege.
World Rugby as an organisation came under fire for admitting Joubert’s mistake the following day but frankly what were they expected to do? The ref had blundered big time and the pictures had been beamed instantly around the world for all to see. I would have been even more outraged had they crassly buried their heads in the sand and gone into denial.
I have no problem with referees being criticised. They are extremely well paid professionals – they earn a damn sight more than most – and if they mess up they should expect the occasional rollicking. We’ve all been there. It might even motivate them to be better referees. This perceived omnipotence and god-like status of the ref is outdated. It was a device – a clever sleight of hand – that ‘worked’ to excuse cock-ups before technology existed.
But everything has changed and that now includes the responsibility of paid refs to be better.
On the subject of referees one other complaint, minor but heartfelt. Given that they are full-time professionals, the English-speaking refs really must learn some basic French, Italian and Spanish (say 50 key rugby related words or expressions) and to at least make an attempt to communicate with sides who speak those languages. Speaking very loudly and slowly in pidgin English is simply not acceptable anymore and indeed at least one referee on the World Cup panel barked very unpleasantly at teams with no English. Brownie points by the way for JP Doyle who didn’t always get every decision right but tried constantly to communicate with players in their native tongue.
The semi-finals were night and day. Rugby can be like that, reflecting the mood of the teams and the day. New Zealand against South Africa was ominous, wet, grey, edgy, thunderous in parts but ponderous at times, tense, over-respectful. Too much history to produce a classic on this occasion.
Argentina against Australia meanwhile was an extravagant, sun-drenched, bonanza between two like-minded teams and coaches. For the neutral it was a complete joy.
I had watched the Pumas warm-up through my binoculars high up in the West Stand and could feel their tension and excitement. Three times they ran a lineout drill to the back and three times messed it up. They switched to a couple of moves from the back of the scrum. Twice in a row they fumbled the ball at which point Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe shook his head, called a halt and insisted on a few straightforward handling drills.
Argentina were incredibly nervous and over-excited and all that came out during their frantic opening ten minutes which saw them go 14-3 down. It was almost painful to watch yet the Pumas were being true to their new selves and we loved them for it and applauded their remarkably brave and tenacious fightback in a game in which officialdom showed them no love whatsoever.
The yellow card to Tomás Lavanini was cruel – and only came at the insistence of the TMO after Wayne Barnes had said more than once that a penalty was enough – and contrasts with Australia getting away with identical no arms tackles when under the cosh in the second half. Presumably the TMO was having a cuppa at that juncture. There was a strong argument also for a team yellow as Australia’s “professional” fouls built up.
You can’t say Australia weren’t deserving finalists – they played great attacking rugby and were the better team – but Argentina have a right to expect a more even-handed approach.
Last but not least the final. What an utterly glorious conclusion, comfortably the best World Cup Final so far and a game entirely in tune with the rest of the tournament. Everybody in the New Zealand team put their hand up yet it is a measure of how well Australia battled that with 15 minutes left they were just 21-17 down with the wind in their sails.
You will all have your own memories, mine for a second week on the trot was a Dan Carter dropped-goal. Four points up but with the Aussies believing they could nick the game it cried out for one to settle the nerves and re-exert New Zealand control.
Carter did what needed to be done and nailed a superb 42m dropped goal and untypically even allowed himself a brief celebration. He knew. New Zealand might have only been seven points up but that was the moment that killed Australia off. RWC2015 belonged to New Zealand and deservedly so.