Old instincts of World Rugby are preventing a true global union

The authorities – who always were slow to change – are making sure the game is in no fit shape to expandW hen the International Rugby Board (now World Rugby) voted on the idea of the World Cup in 1985, the result was 10–6 in favour, 16 votes shared equally between the eight nations who alone constituted the body governing the sport around the world. It is not as if rugby was played exclusively in those countries – when that first World Cup was held, nine other nations were invited (to make up 16, with South Africa in isolation) – but they were, literally and metaphorically, the only ones who c…