With the IRB conference in Woking having just ended without any decisions being made about a global season or the place of the Pumas in international rugby still undecided many feel the event failed to grasp an historic opportunity to fix world rugby.



Mark Hinton in Rugbyheaven NZ said that the IRB conference in Woking was all talk and no substance.

"While the IRB must be applauded for the initiative shown in addressing such an urgent issue, and for the commitment of spending so much of their hard-earned World Cup profits on such a comprehensive gathering, it's hard to shake the feeling that for all the talking, we're really none the better off,"

he wrote. No structure has been put in place for the advancement of the game in Argentina and we are still going to see under strength northern hemisphere teams touring the southern hemisphere because no decision was made on a global season Hinton fears.

Follow up:

Eddie Butler in the Guardian shared Hinton's feelings.

"The Woking Forum came and went without much of a peep. Eighty of the world's most influential people in rugby met not long after the glittering success of the World Cup in France, discussed the way ahead and held their tongues. Such discipline."

Butler claims that until European and world rugby is no longer dominated by England and France little will change.


If the Woking conference did not change much the SANZAR decision to implement the new Experimental Law Variations (ELVs) has been welcomed across the board. Rupert Guinness writing for the Sydney Morning Herald says the Australian sides will have an early advantage as they are the only ones to have played under the new laws.

"With Australian rugby in dire straits after poor results in last year's Super 14 and World Cup, and a drop in crowds, gate takings, and television ratings, quick on-field success next season would be the ideal medicine. The introduction of the ELVS into Super 14 will further help revive the 15-man code, as they have been designed to make the game more entertaining, faster, and simpler for players, referees and spectators."

And finally the issue that will just not die down. In an exclusive interview to the Times Mark Cuetto is still one hundred percent convinced that the disallowed try he scored against the Springboks in the World Cup final was legitimate.

"There was no definite view to prove that it wasn't a try but there were 101 views to prove that it was," Cuetto said. "In that situation, the benefit of the doubt must go to the attacking side. In any other game, it would have been given."

Source: Rugby Fanz