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Rugby World Cup: Too many mis-matches?
(CNN) -- Rugby fans have been waiting four years for the World Cup to come round. Now it is here, they are going to have to wait another four weeks for it to get exciting. Barring the odd exception, the preliminary pool games have been a series of brutal mis-matches between the giants of the game and the plucky minnows. Nobody can tell me that Australia's match with Romania or England's encounter with Georgia was going to create much interest in the wider sporting world. Unlike football, genuine upsets just do not happen in rugby. The above matches were never going to result in anything other than a cricket score for the favorites. The losers take home an international cap and a lifetime of after-dinner stories. But the chiefs at the International Rugby Board (IRB) are in a tricky position. To expand their game, they must include developing teams. Twenty nations are contesting this year's Webb Ellis Trophy. The only way these teams are going to improve is by taking on the big guns -- but they have got some way to go. At the inaugural tournament in 1987, New Zealand beat Italy 70-6. When they met again the other day it was 70-7. So in 16 years, Italy have improved by one point. That is painfully slow progress. There has been some improvement though. In 1987, it was only the original seven IRB teams (England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Australia and New Zealand) that were consistently winning. Since then, the likes of Samoa and Argentina have made tremendous progress. By 1991, the former beat Wales, and the Pumas denied the Irish a place in the last eight last time. Meanwhile, rugby is reaching a wider audience. Television figures for the inaugural tournament were measured in the millions. They were talking billions by 1999. That is undoubtedly good for the game, but all those dollar signs cannot guarantee that every nation plays its best team. Suggestions that some of the weaker countries were unable to pry their stars away from powerful clubs are yet to be fully investigated. And in the opening week we had the farcical situation of Canada fielding their second team against the All Blacks because they wanted to focus their energy on games they might win. It is difficult to offer a viable alternative. To exclude the developing rugby nations would be to stunt the game's global growth. It is worth remembering that this is only the fifth rugby World Cup, whereas football is preparing for its 18th in three years. As more teams become fully professional, and therefore fitter and stronger, the gulf in class should diminish. But rugby has some way to go before producing really surprising results. Nevertheless, the "phoney war" of the pool stage will soon be over. And I cannot wait for the knockout stages, which promise some fantastic action.
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