The 2015 edition of the Rugby World Cup has been hugely entertaining and there will still be many thrills in the coming weeks, but the biggest high-fives up to now go to the minnows of the tournament.
The little guys have come good big-time in England and helped make the tournament a truly special one. They have got us cheering for them against the bigger nations and wishing them to cause an upset – just as they did against the Boks.
As hard as it was to accept losing to Japan, how can we not all celebrate the success of the Brave Blossoms at the tournament and even the performances of a good few of the other minnows? They have been the ones who’ve kept things interesting in what otherwise may have turned into a fairly drab affair.
We watch the bigger nations year-in and year-out hammering away at each other in the Six Nations, the Rugby Championship and also in the June and November Tests. But we never see Japan, Romania, Georgia, the USA, Canada and the like take on the big boys and that’s why their participation at the World Cup is vital and a joy every four years.
In the coming week we will see eight of the world’s top nations (sorry England) fight it out for a shot at playing in the semi-finals. There will be outstanding individual performances, heroes will be born and teams will make nations proud, but already heroes have emerged and fans in the most unlikeliest of places will be puffing out their chests.
A team will be hailed the best on the planet at the end of this month and they’d be deserving and will go into the annals of history, but the 2015 tournament could just also go down as the most successful of all-time and that’s due to the contribution made by the Tier Two and Tier Three nations.
Rugby is growing and hats off to everyone who has helped make it happen.
Sorry New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Wales and Argentina – the team who’ve had the biggest impact in England are Japan. Eddie Jones’ team may be heading home after finishing third in Pool B, but with three wins out of four they were the outstanding side in the pool stages and have won fans across the world.
How the Brave Blossoms have grown. Before this tournament Japan had played 24 World Cup matches and won just one – against Zimbabwe in 1991. In 1995 they suffered a 145-17 pounding at the hands of the All Blacks. Roll on to 2015 and they’ve now won three times in just the last month. Rugby is growing in Japan, helped by the influx of star-studded players and experienced coaches and they can hardly be called a minnow anymore.
European nations Georgia and Romania also played their part, giving their all in their matches even though they were generally out-gunned, but they’re hardly whipping boys. Canada and the USA also fought gallantly, while the Pacific Islands teams – Fiji, Tonga and Samoa – were largely disappointing. Uruguay and Na-mibia had their moments, but greater investment in rugby is needed in those countries.
It has been a joy to watch the so-called minnows, but it is time that World Rugby did more to help their development. Playing at the World Cup every four years is not good enough if the likes of Georgia, Romania and Japan are to truly progress. These teams and their like should play against Tier One nations on a more regular basis. Why can’t the Boks, Wallabies and All Blacks make a stop-over in Tbilisi or Bucha-rest or Tokyo once a year? That is now something for the rugby powers to consider.
Here’s looking forward to Japan 2019 and let’s hope for more of the same from the minnows, if we’ll still be referring to them as such then. - The Star