THE gnashing of teeth and wailing from the southern hemisphere unions that accompanied the failure of Agustin Pichot to unseat Bill Beaumont as World Rugby chairman was predictable.
New Zealand, Australia and South Africa have made such a mess of their own competition structures that they were seduced by Pichot’s siren call. He promised that if they backed him he would fill their coffers by becoming Rugby Union’s answer to a Robin Hood – or his own hero, Che Guevara – by taking the wealth from the bold, bad barons of the Six Nations and redistributing it ...