As we sit here in March 2011, the Cricket World Cup has hit the end of the group stages, & barring the heroic victory by Ireland over the very oldest of enemies, England, the minnows have by and large been crushed by the established Cricket playing nations.

Later this year the greater sporting love of most Rugby-Talk bloggers, Rugby Union will hold it’s version of the World Cup in New Zealand. Can we expect the same sort of pattern with the smaller nations or can we expect an upset or two?

Based on historical evidence, we can expect more crushing defeats for the likes of Japan, Romania, Namibia and Russia.

Let’s face it, there are many parallels between the Cricket World Cup and the Rugby World Cup.

In the bat and ball sport there are realistically only seven countries that are capable of winning the competition, namely South Africa, Australia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, England and on historical evidence maybe the West Indies.

In the oval ball sport there are even less countries who realistically have a decent chance of winning the competition, and at the risk of causing heated debate, (and perhaps a bit of name calling) I am going to name them as: (in no particular order) South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, England and (on a good day) France.

The likes of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Argentina can argue until they are blue in the face, but the reality is that these countries just don’t have the strength in depth to win the competition. Sure, they may win the odd big one, as Argentina did against France in 2007, but the reality is that the liklihood of any of these teams stringing enough big games together to win the competition is remote at best.

There are many people in world Rugby who advocate that Rugby should reduce the number of participating teams to the IRB founder nations (England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia), and one or two of the stronger “other teams” who could possibly qualify through a “second level” world competition.

Of course International Cricket Council (ICC) has already advocated that the next Cricket World Cup will only have 10 teams competing, made up predominantly of the full member countries. Obviously the Irish will point to victory over the English and say “we deserve to be there”, but in reality do they?

But my real love is Rugby and not Cricket, so what I need to ask is what are the IRB going to do in order to increase the global awareness of Rugby Union to the extent that the Rugby World Cup attains real meaning in world sporting terms?

If you’ll all indulge me a little I’d like to recall an incident from the early 1970’s that makes me think that in real terms Rugby hasn’t developed beyond being a fringe sport at all.

In the 1974 FIFA World Cup, Yugoslavia beat Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) 9 – 0, and about the same time (1973) a Wales XV (they were not awarded full caps), then a world force in Rugby Union beat Japan by 62 points to 14.

As a young lad I asked my Rugby master how such one sided contests could be allowed in international sport. My teacher, the former Coventy and Warwickshire prop Jack Pilbin went to great lenghts to explain that countries like Japan and Romania (who lost narrowly (6 -9) to France the same year) were the future of Rugby Union and that it was only by exposing them to a higher level of opposition that they would ever be able to achieve their full potential.

34 years later in the 2007 RWC Wales again beat Japan. This time by 72 – 18, and in 2001 England beat Romania 134 – 0.

So I must conclude that either poor old Jack Pilbin was terribly off the money, or that there has been little or no development of second tier Rugby nations.

In contrast though, it’s doubtful that the DRC will ever again be humiliated like they were in the 1974 FIFA World Cup.

So where to from here?

The IRB will argue that they have made great strides in advocating better grassroots development and that the inclusion of Sevens in the Olympic Games in Rio in 2016 is testament to this. They’ll argue that this inclusion has led to government funding for Rugby in both Russia and the USA where only Olympic movement sports are funded.

It is widely recognised in world Rugby circles that both the USA and Russia are important development regions for Rugby purely from a potential player base point of view, so perhaps the IRB have a point.

However what the IRB fail to explain is that the Olympic Rugby competition will officially replace the IRB 7’s World Championship as the Rugby code’s premier competition. (Please note IT DOES NOT REPLACE THE IRB HSBC SEVENS WORLD SERIES.)

Now, on the surface this idea seems all fine and dandy, but let’s delve a little deeper and look at a couple of facts.

The current IRB 7’s World Champions are Wales, (yes WALES) who won the last World Championship in Dubai in 2009.

Perhaps the best know exponents of the sevens game world wide are undoubtedly Fiji who, along with New Zealand and to a slightly lesser extent Samoa and England are amongst the most consistent performing teams on the world 7’s circuit.

So here the problems start to creep into the whole scenario, England and Wales DO NOT COMPETE at the Olympics as they form part of the Great Britain team, and Fiji are currently banned from Olympic sanctioned events due to the Military government of the country having seized power by foce.

Hence the next but one “World 7’s Championships” will see the 2009 champions denied the chance to compete, and there is every chance that two of the top 5 teams in the world, as well as the country that gave birth to Sevens, (Scotland) will also be excluded.

On top of this Ireland, in Rugby terms is a combination of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Something totally unique in Irish terms, but Northern Ireland, although part of the United Kingdom are not part of Great Britain and don’t compete as such, but do so independently, and so could conceivably compete at the Olympic Sevens, as could the Republic of Ireland. (The United Kingdom is made up of Great Britain, (which comprises of England, Scotland and Wales), and Northern Ireland.)

Seems to me that the IRB haven’t really done their homework, but at least they have a few years to persuade the Olympic movement of Great Britain to allow the individual countries to compete, or tell the English and Welsh Rugby Unions that they don’t really deserve to be in the Olympic Sevens, but Northern Ireland, Tunisia, Papua New Gineua and Swaziland do.

They also have a couple of years to lobby for a democratic government in Fiji.

Oh, and let’s not forget that the Women can also compete en masse at the Olympics, so real development must be taking place.

Personally, I can’t see a solution where all parties are satisfied, but hey at least the USA and Russian Rugby bodies now have government funding, if only for the abbreviated version of the game.

I’m sure that the average11 year old kid living in Kazahkstan hasn’t got a clue that the Springboks are the current World Rugby Champions, but you can bet your last R100 note on it that he knows that Spain won the FIFA World Cup in South Africa in 2010.

I guess what I’m trying to get at, is that there is not enough true GRASSROOTS Rugby development going on in the sporting world to elevate Rugby Union anywhere above fringe sport status.

Something that the IRB will have to address in the future if they want the Rugby World Cup winners of 2011 to be recognised as true World Champions the world over.

That’s the kind of GLOBAL RECOGNITION that the IRB should be striving for for Rugby Union.