Rejection, it’s not a nice feeling, especially when it comes from someone you really had your heart set on. Often, we don’t take no for an answer, refusing to believe that our Cherie amour, the pretty little one we adore, doesn’t need us in their lives. We persist, redoubling our efforts, making it clear that we will not give up without a fight, that, despite what they think, it’s meant to be. At this point they either change their number, block us on Facebook, or call the guards, leaving us with no choice but to back off, to pine over their picture and weep into the pillow we once shared.
Dick Spring and the people behind Ireland’s Rugby World Cup bid haven’t reached the point where they’re sending drunken texts to the World Rugby Board yet, but they’re not far off it. Unable to comprehend how its overtures, its sparkly presentations and thorough, detailed dossiers, were rejected in favour of the clearly inferior South African effort, Spring and his cohorts have gone on the offensive, insisting that Ireland is in fact the best candidate for the 2023 Rugby World Cup and that World Rugby just doesn’t realise it yet.
And they’re not the only ones. If Spring has come across as being slightly peeved, his French counterpart, Bernard Laporte, has gone into full meltdown, his hissy fit endearing him to no-one in the slightest. While Spring used logic in his appeal, arguing that we have “approximately sized stadiums for each stage of the tournament” (which, to me, sounds like a clever way of saying we have small stadiums but at least they’ll be full), that Ireland is a much safer place than either South Africa or France, and that we boast “several unique aspects that could never be scored in a narrow report” (I can’t be sure, but I think he’s referring to ‘the craic’ here), Laporte just went on a bit of a rant, accusing World Rugby of lying to him, calling them “amateurs”, and even throwing in a subtle suggestion of corruption for good measure.
In true competitive spirit we should view this act of French petulance as a blessing in disguise. It makes us look good, while simultaneously ruling the French out of the race; Laporte’s tirade the romantic equivalent of turning up on your crush’s doorstep and screaming obscenities into their letterbox. No, we’ve conducted ourselves well here, choosing to pen a measured love letter, reminding them of our strengths, of the things we’re good at, without ever coming across as needy or pathetic. And, most pertinently, we’ve managed to subtly criticise their selection, South Africa, screwing up our faces, pointing to them and saying, “That guy? Really?!”
Given that this is the first time the hosts of the Rugby World Cup have been selected in this manner, there’s no real telling what way the vote will go on November 15. This recommendation has only set a parameter in place, provided the decision-makers with a little extra information. For all we know it could be a total irrelevance. It could end up being completely ignored by the members of the World Rugby Council; a group of people who are bound to have their own views, and are unlikely to be impressed by the committee’s recommendation report, all 139 pages of it.
If the football World Cup has taught us anything, it’s that the quality of your bid, the suitability of your nation, is often the last consideration when it comes to selecting the winner. How else can you explain the 1994 finals being played in front of a mostly bemused American audience? Or the 2010 finals taking place in a dangerous, crime-ridden African country whose name escapes me? Or the forthcoming 2022 tournament being awarded to Qatar, home to one of the worst teams in world football? Oh, but you can explain it, of course you can, we all can. Because, ultimately, it comes down to money, to greed, to the fat cats getting fatter and the best candidate often being ignored.
Far be it from me to suggest that Dick Spring is going about this the wrong way, that he should, instead of writing serious, rational letters, be getting out the old brown envelope from his days in Dáil Eireann, filling it up with a few fifties and slipping it under the doors of those who matter most. But it wouldn’t do any harm, would it?
