The threat to boycott the British & Irish Lions tour of 2013 was never put forward formally, but an official was warned in passing as it emerged that the powerful “home unions” of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland would be broken for the first time.

The Daily Telegraph, Australia

Australia backed the incumbent Bernard Lapasset to hold his job as IRB chairman for the next four years, spoiling the hopes of the British ruling bodies who backed England’s Bill Beaumont. Frenchman Lapasset won a tense 14-12 vote.

It was also revealed that for the first time, Australia and New Zealand were divided at the meeting. The NZRU sided with the north and backed Beaumont, much to the surprise of their SANZAR colleagues, with South Africa also voting for Lapasset.

It was the axing of Wales’s David Pickering and Scotland’s Bill Nolan, in favour of Tatsuzo Yabe and Bob Latham from the emerging regions of Japan and North America, which caused great angst.

The appointments represent a huge shift in the power base at the IRB’s head table, given Japan and North America are more likely to support southern hemisphere plans than Wales and Scotland.

As it became apparent the old boys club was to be shattered, the threat of pulling the Lions team out of the 2013 tour to Australia was made in a startling comment away from the meeting room.

A quick check of the television and match contracts already signed by the British and Irish organisations assured Australia it would be near impossible for the threat to be carried through, so they held firm in support of Lapasset, who pioneered the push for rugby Sevens to become an Olympic sport.

Relations between the ARU and NZRU are also frosty after the acrimonious meeting in Los Angeles.

There are suspicions among Australian and South African officials that New Zealand had arranged a potentially lucrative deal with England in exchange for backing Beaumont.

Many doubt the publicised explanation – that Beaumont promised to elect New Zealand’s committee representative Graham Mourie to the vice-chairman’s role if he won – would have been enough for the Kiwis to push so fiercely for the northern candidate.

Mourie was snubbed by Beaumont anyway when, after losing the chairman’s vote to Lapasset, he ran himself as the candidate for the vice-chairman’s role.

Mourie stood aside at Beaumont’s request, but the Englishman was thwarted yet again as Lapasset used his extra vote to break a 13-13 deadlock and elect South Africa’s Oregan Hoskins.

That move ensured that for the first time since the formation of the IRB in 1886, neither the chairman nor vice-chairman is from one of the British or Irish unions.

The new IRB executive committee: Bernard Lapasset (chairman), Oregan Hoskins (vice-chairman), Mike Miller (chief executive), Bill Beaumont (England), Tatsuzo Yabe (Japan), Giancarlo Dondi (Italy), Peter McGrath (Australia), Peter Doyle (Ireland), Graham Mourie (New Zealand), Bob Latham (North America Caribbean Rugby Association).