The world doesn’t owe us a Cup

There has been plenty of weeping and wailing since yesterday’s announcement that Rugby World Cup 2023 will be hosted by France.

After an extensive –and expensive – technical evaluation process, from which South Africa emerged as World Rugby’s preferred choice, some people asked if it might not have been simpler to just put the names of Ireland, France and South African into a hat and draw one.

There are those who point to questions about security in South Africa – but France has not exactly been free of terrorist incidents in the past few years, either.

SA is a long way away from Europe, but Europe is even further away from Australasia, an ardent rugby-loving area.

Is it possible that the avalanche of adverse publicity which has blown up around President Jacob Zuma played a role? Or could it also be that we lost the Cup because we dropped the ball?

After the technical report, our rugby bosses appeared to think a win was a foregone conclusion, whereas the French and Irish continued lobbying to the end, focusing on our horrific murder rate.

Here’s the lesson: we are no longer the Rainbow Nation and the world doesn’t owe us anything …

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