International Rugby Union in Danger of Falling Apart

When the International Rugby Board meets in Dublin next week, Australia and New Zealand will raise the subject of tours. The All Blacks have been criticized for choosing a largely reserve side against Scotland at Murrayfield on Saturday, but at least they have brought all their leading players on the grand slam visit.

England were hardly at full strength when they went to New Zealand last summer, even if it was hard to tell then, Wales left players behind when they left for South Africa, and so long is the club season in France that Les Bleus rarely take any big guns out of their armory when they fly south.

The major southern-hemisphere unions have had enough. "If there comes a time when the northern hemisphere don't comply with the regulations and send their best teams south and we suffer the consequences of a downturn in gates and the popularity of the game, we might tell them not to bother to come in June," said John O'Neill, the chief executive of the Australian Rugby Union. "Our point of leverage is that we do not go north."

That is a prospect to leave the home unions, and their bank managers, in a state of panic. England and Wales are this month playing four internationals, even though the IRB only allows for three in November and even though they will be undermining their own domestic competitions on the final weekend of the month. They need the money as last year's autumn internationals were wiped out by the World Cup, even if Wales did sneak in a game against South Africa.

England and Wales pay a price for the fourth international, handsomely compensating their clubs/regions for releasing players and giving a chunk of the profits to the visiting union, but they will still both bank a seven-figure sum in a cash-rich month for the pair of them with South Africa, Australia and New Zealand all visiting Cardiff and Twickenham.

Steve Tew, the New Zealand Rugby Union chief executive, said that ending the tours was possible in the medium term, but what is more likely is that their nature will change. With the already long European season set to become even more congested - starting in August to cater for the EDF Energy Cup replacement and dragging on for the Celtic unions with the Magners League introducing a play-off from next season - the chances are that full-strength European touring teams will be the exception rather than the rule. And, anyway, the Sanzar unions are planning to expand the Super 14 and the Tri-nations.

The home unions can always use the Lions in any arm-wrestle, but will there be a place for friendly internationals in the calendar from the next decade onwards? Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are already concerned at the commercial imbalance between the two hemispheres: rationing their visits to Europe, and perhaps reverting to the tour program of old when just one of them came over and played all the home unions while also indulging in midweek fixtures, would reduce turnover at Twickenham and elsewhere.

Another option is a competition played between World Cups, which has already been floated by the IRB, as is scrapping the June and November windows and having a month when Tests would be played in each of the hemispheres.

Lost in all this are visits made by emerging nations. Fiji may have beaten Wales in the World Cup and given South Africa a scare in the quarter-final, but they have hardly been deluged with invitations since. They, along with Tonga and Samoa, are in Europe this month in the guise of the Pacific Islands, but they will return home without the hundreds of thousands of pounds New Zealand and Australia will enjoy for fulfilling a fourth international.

The IRB's conference in Woking last year was meant to give some shape to the amorphous lump that is professional rugby's calendar, but the talking goes on. The danger is that a Stanford figure will step in and offer a cart-load of hundred dollar bills for some sort of north-south match-up played in an Asian zoo.

Unions like England and Wales could hardly complain about an appeal to greed given their indulgence for arranging internationals outside the IRB's agreed limit. The game is becoming like Yeats's widening gyre; the center is struggling to hold and things are in danger of falling apart with the rugby world facing anarchy being set loose upon it.