by It is little known that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was an avid rugby fan. He traveled to France, South Africa and New Zealand to watch matches and, in 1924, wrote in his autobiography that he considered rugby “the best communal sport” because of its physical and mental demands. Holmes’s trusty companion, Watson, was even credited with playing on the wing for England’s oldest club, Blackheath, back in the day.
So what did the famous detective get out of studying the 2023 Rugby World Cup, almost exactly a century later? It’s easy to imagine him exhaling a cloud of pipe smoke in his Baker Street accommodation and what didn’t happen defined the end of the tournament. The hosts France were not shoulder-high through the streets of Paris with the championship, the Irish were not able to live up to their fans’ best dreams and, in the final, the Black dog did not bark in the night. In the end the South African side was better than the rest which was a bit stronger and nicer than the rest.
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Should everyone have seen it coming? Maybe. The Springboks were the bright eyes of the defending champions and defeated New Zealand 35-7 in their final pre-championship game at Twickenham. That same week, by chance, I happened to be standing next to the same coffee machine as the All Black head coach, Ian Foster, and I asked how his team was preparing for the final test. Foster truly felt that her side was in a good place; he didn’t know the Boks were in an even better one.
When people revisit the build stage data the other overarching conclusion is the absurdly thin margins between success and failure. No team will ever win another Rugby World Cup in as tight a fashion as the Boks won this one: three consecutive one-point wins in the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final, all emerged from granite-hard strife. It was less about individual achievement and more a collective case of South Africa refusing to be beaten. Basic, really.
Very good
Each World Cup is remembered differently depending on people’s vantage points. The latest edition was the definitive example. Everyone present in France could feel the air go out of the competition’s tricolor balloons as the beaten hosts fell to the ground at the final whistle in their quarter-final match. It was a similar story the evening before when Ireland lost 24-28 against New Zealand. Try telling anyone in those two countries that they should give eternal thanks, as is still happening throughout South Africa, for the precious gifts that 2023 has brought.
There were, however, certain unifying themes to refresh even the sharpest of palates. To be in the Stade de France as thousands of Irish fans belt out Dirty Old Town and Zombie after watching their team beat the Boks in the pool stages was to experience the special shared communion that fans can still generating rugby fans (when they’re not. booing Eddie Jones or Owen Farrell on the big screen). It was the same in the glorious final moments when Portugal emerged for a last-gasp try against Fiji in Toulouse to earn Os Lobos their first win at the World Cup. The World Cup comes alive when people are taken out of their seats and Portugal managed to do it almost every time they took the field.
In the end, however, one man – again – stood out. Not Eben Etzebeth, Pieter Steph du Toit, Handré Pollard, Ox Nché or any of the other Bok steel winners but their captain, Siya Kolisi. The next time anyone talks casually about leadership being less important in a modern data-driven and coach-led sporting environment, just direct them to Kolisi’s media addresses during the tournament. sincerity, integrity, passion, humanity … the boy from the town of Zwide in the Eastern Cape has matured into perhaps the most impressive figure in sport around the world. When New Zealanders are lamenting their 14-11 defeat in the final and blaming the officials for red-carding their skipper Sam Cane, they are forgetting the connections highlights – part spiritual, part band – that lifted South Africa above all others. It must be a rarity to lead a team to one World Cup victory, never mind two. Rugby union has never had a finer ambassador.
The evil
The World Cup can play tricks on the imagination. Was it really just four months ago that Eddie Jones was still being cited as Australia’s trump card? It feels noticeably longer now. Few have left a more extensive trail of coaching wreckage in their wake over the past 12 months than Jones, now awaiting his next challenge in the form of a second spell as Japan head coach. After England defeated Jones last December, they could only lob hospital passes to Steve Borthwick, who had little choice but to draw up the most basic game plans for a tournament that claim a little more in the way of layered sophistication. The Wallabies? Toddler meal times ended with less of a mess than Australia’s 40-6 defeat in Wales in Lyon, after Jones’ days in charge of his homeland were inevitably numbered.
And, as for Johan Deysel, perhaps what could have happened if the Namibian captain had not hit the French king Antoine Dupont in a pool match Les Bleus who had already won the length of the Champs-Élysées? One untimely breach, one giant hole in the nation’s self-confidence. Dupont was back, wearing a protective head guard, in time for the quarter-final against South Africa but it was never to be the same in D’Artagnan’s wake. In that split second – with France 54-0 up in a game they would eventually win 96-0 – the tournament’s greatest asset came in a flash of pearl clutches, daily medical bulletins and global frustration. If France could rewrite a single moment of their World Cup – including Cheslin Kolbe’s crucial save on Thomas Ramos’s try conversion – it would have to be replacing Dupont at half-time in that game in Namibia before the disaster.
The ugly
Rugby’s rulers had the best of intentions when they confirmed, on the eve of the World Cup, that the new bunker review system would be used to help on-field referees consider dangerous or reckless playing situations. Unfortunately, the results were often so stark and debatable that uncertainty reigned. Tom Curry was red-carded in the opening minutes of England’s opening game for the sin of colliding with Argentina’s collapsing opponents and there was always the possibility of a long slow-motion inquest having a major impact on a big game flea market. Sure enough, he came to pass in the final. It could be argued that Cane’s dismissal was a lesser offense than his colleague Shannon Frizzell had already done earlier in the game but according to the letter of the law he had to go. It didn’t help the sport, either, that the final decision to red card the All Black captain, after a lengthy bunker review process, ultimately came from the hands of fine referee, Wayne Barnes. The idea was to help officials, not make them helpless hostages of their fortune.
Worse still was the subsequent social media fury directed at Barnes and fellow England executive Tom Foley. Both announced their retirement from the international game shortly after the tournament, sickened by the abuse directed at themselves and their families. A societal problem, in part, but also increasingly a rugby problem. Eddie Jones is among those who believe there is a direct link between long pauses in the game for video reviews and bored and distracted fans pushing individuals to the big screen. The final game was handled by the talented Barnes with grace and yet here he was, still being put in trouble by the cowardly and faceless people. Rugby’s biggest championship ever had its bright, happy moments but there were also flashes of darkness.
Lessons learned
Let’s start with the good news. The quarter-finals of France v South Africa and Ireland v New Zealand were as good as rugby went; hard, fast, skilful, resourceful and staged brilliantly. The only downside was that two of the top four sides in the world could not be involved in the final fortnight. The next time the draw will be set closer to the event, reducing the chance of a comma ranking and shaping the competition in the same way again. The effective length of the competition is also being cut from eight weeks to seven weeks: the 2023 edition was so long that even those of us who had barely passed French O-levels were almost fluent by the end.
If World Rugby could wave a magic wand, however, it would be to expand the number of properly competitive teams to coincide with a scheduled expansion to 24 nations (from 20) next time around. In addition to concussion-related lawsuits and off-field financial concerns, the international game must still be wary of too many mismatches, a lack of danger and an uneven playing field that is skewed in favor of the established elite. Success, or otherwise, in 2027 and 2031 will be most effectively measured by the scorelines when the teams ranked 21 to 24 in the world rankings take on the big boys.
