Home advantage tells in 2002

SYDNEY (Reuters) -- In a year when the gap between the top northern and southern hemisphere teams almost disappeared, the most significant result for world rugby was not decided at Twickenham, Eden Park or even Sydney's Olympic Stadium, but in a boardroom in Dublin.

It was there that the International Rugby Board (IRB) took the extraordinary and unprecedented step of dumping New Zealand as co-hosts of next year's World Cup and awarding the entire event to Australia.

The importance of that decision was borne out by the end of the year when it became apparent that the margin between the leading countries was now so close that home-ground advantage had become the deciding factor.

Australia, New Zealand, France and England were all undefeated at home, while South Africa lost just one match on their own turf. Yet none of them, with the exception of New Zealand who had a 30-23 win over the Springboks in Durban, were able to beat the other members of the sport's big five away from the comforts of home.

Australia's performances on the field, however, were less impressive than their boardroom coup as the Wallabies failed to repeat their glorious successes of the past three seasons.

Their game plan was often predictable and the retirement of John Eales and the advancing years of their senior men had a marked effect. The Wallabies were once the great escape artists of world rugby but they started losing the close games this season.

They began the season well enough, completing a comfortable series win over Six Nations champions France then beating the All Blacks to retain the Bledisloe Cup, and the Springboks, only to surrender the Tri-Nations crown to the All Blacks after losing both matches abroad.

Doping case

Their end-of-season tour to Europe and South America was hugely disappointing. They beat Argentina and Italy, lost to England by a point and suffered a rare loss to Ireland in Dublin while experimenting with new combinations.

Australia's administrators, cock-a-hoop after their World Cup coup, finished the year with serious question marks hanging over them after they were found to have covered up a doping case involving Ben Tune at a time when the sport was pushing for inclusion in the Olympics.

New Zealanders, unsurprisingly, were outraged at the IRB's decision to strip them of half the World Cup after the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRFU) said it could not guarantee to provide stadiums clear of advertising and corporate seats as required.

New Zealand initially threatened to boycott the tournament and blamed the whole fiasco on an elaborate Australian ploy, even though most of the world's major rugby nations voted against them and an independent investigator pointed to the NZRFU as the main culprits.

Things were better on the field for New Zealand under new coach John Mitchell, with the All Blacks taking the Tri-Nations from Australia after failing to reclaim the Bledisloe Cup when they lost a thriller in Sydney.

New Zealand's Canterbury Crusaders became the first team to go through the southern hemisphere's regional Super 12 series undefeated and New Zealand showed off their enormous depth when they left 21 first-choice players at home and still managed to draw with France and get within three points of England on their end-of-season trek to Europe.

England completed an historic clean sweep when they beat New Zealand, Australia and South Africa in successive weeks in November to extend their unbeaten record at Twickenham to 18 matches.

Led by pointscoring machine Jonny Wilkinson, the international player of the year, the English forwards outmuscled their southern hemisphere rivals to suggest they will be a force at the World Cup, which opens on October 10, if they can learn to win away from home.

Grand slam

Clive Woodward's team have dominated European rugby since 1999 but failed to win a grand slam and did it again this year when they tripped up in Paris.

The French have gone from strength to strength since making the 1999 World Cup final against all expectations, completing back-to-back grand slams this year, beating South Africa and drawing with the All Blacks.

They lost a 2-0 series in Australia in June but, like the southern hemisphere giants, they have bigger fish to fry next year.

South African rugby was rocked by new revelations by former black winger Chester Williams of racism, defections of some of their top players to European club rugby, then a poor tour of Europe which included defeat to Scotland and the inevitable calls for mass sackings.

Ireland also pulled off an historic win over the Wallabies in driving rain to the strains of U2's "It's A Beautiful Day" and Argentina beat France and Italy to prove they are no pushovers.

Georgia beat Russia to qualify for the World Cup and both Chile and Uruguay toppled the United States but the gap between the big playing nations and the rest could not have been any bigger in 2002.

A proposal by IRB boss Vernon Pugh to play a Northern v Southern hemisphere match in Cardiff to raise funds for developing nations was abandoned because of a lack of support from the big teams.

 

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