Boredom busting has World Cup teams on move

BY MICHAEL DONALDSON

Hamilton has suffered the accusation. So too Palmerston North. But the general consensus is that nearly every town in New Zealand is too boring to play host to a Rugby World Cup team for five weeks.

The original idea for the 2011 World Cup was that teams would be in one place for the five weeks of pool play, but feedback from the 14 nations which have so far qualified for the tournament has forced a rethink.

Martin Snedden, head of Rugby NZ 2011, said the change was brought in to stop teams going stir crazy. Or more pertinently to stop them going barmy in Palmy.

"I've been in this situation with cricket teams, if you tour Sri Lanka and end up in Colombo for five weeks, while Colombo is a an interesting place, it's bloody hard work for five weeks in a row," Snedden told the Star-Times. "It's the same here, teams don't want to be in one place for five weeks."

Now sides will have between three and six bases during the pool phase and the duration of stay at each base may range anywhere from two nights to up to 22 nights. That means more regions will be involved than was originally planned. "Some areas will get more than one team and some will have two or three floating through them."

Snedden is close to finalising who stays where but he's warning some areas will not get what they hoped.

"Some will miss out," Snedden said. "There are more communities applying than there are slots available; inevitably there will be some disappointed communities, it's just the way it falls."

Snedden is trying to marry up the requests from potential host cities and towns with what teams want. The most obvious thing he has observed so far is that Ireland is the most popular team and if it was up to New Zealanders the men in green would be changing hotels every couple of days in order to please as many people as possible.

"Everyone likes Ireland, that hasn't surprised us as there's a natural synergy between New Zealanders and Irish.

"We like Irish people, that's our default position but teams can't be travelling all over the country left right and centre and Ireland certainly cannot be based in 10 different places."

However, no place is proving more popular than others when it comes to the teams' wish lists.

"One thing teams are particular about is the quality of the training facilities and the quality of the back-up facilities. They want a decent pool, a decent gym, and the size of the beds is important; the accommodation has to be able to cope with these big guys."

Snedden was coy on where teams would be based but a glance at the draw suggests Italy is going to spend a fair amount of time in Nelson, Tonga will be camped in Whangarei for a bit, South Africa will spend most of its time in Wellington and the North Shore of Auckland and England will feel at home in Christchurch for two games.

Snedden was reluctant to comment on where the All Blacks would be based.

They play pool games in Auckland (twice), Hamilton and Wellington so it seems unlikely they'll spend much time in the South Island before the quarterfinal weekend in Christchurch.

"I'd be a bit hesitant to talk about them at the moment. They themselves might have some ideas but they're taking the attitude that it's two years away and it's in the not in the frame for them yet.

"And we have to be careful that the way we treat the All Blacks is that they are just one of the 20 teams in the tournament. It's easy for me to say that, but we would get it in the neck from the other teams if they thought the All Blacks were getting favourable treatment, so we're bending over backwards to make sure we treat them the same as the other teams."

An announcement on team bases will be made on December 17 or 18 and Snedden promised it would be a "great story".

- © Fairfax NZ News