Underwhelmed by the World Cup

World Cup? What World Cup? Initial impressions are that the good folk of Western Australia and Perth have hardly been overwhelmed by what rugby officials like to claim is the third largest sporting event in the world.

RWC matches in Perth will be played at the Subiaco Oval, a stadium which sounds as though it might have been named after a Japanese motor manufacturer but which has, in fact, been a sporting venue since 1908, but at the nearby train station there is hardly any evidence of rugby union’s big event.

No billboards, no posters (certainly not which stand out) and a shop assistant at a chemist within sight of the stadium could well have been speaking for other locals when enquiring after my accent. “Where you from?” South Africa. “Oh, what brings you to Perth?” The Rugby World Cup. “Oh.”

The taxi driver transporting me from the airport to the Springboks’ hotel in Fremantle – a $45 dollar trip of some 30 minutes – was a friendly expatriate Yugoslavian named Mikhael but he too was unimpressed by the lead-up to the tournament, claiming that he had seen no increase in business.

The problem may well be that the great numbers of fans expected to support South Africa and England, who are based in a city-centre hotel, have yet to arrive but Perth, which is a cricket and Aussie rules town, is hardly abuzz with rugby fever.

There are promotional campaigns running in pubs – waiters dressed in RWC T-shirts, two drinks for the price of one and the like – but it is apparent that rugby union is something of a curiosity with Thursday’s cricket test between Australia and Zimbabwe at the Waca garnering more column inches in the local newspaper “The Western Australian” even though RWC activity is well covered.

One of the problems has been that the two big teams in Pool C, the Springboks and England, have been retiring and private – preferring to stage closed practice sessions and facing the many pressman in structured conferences – while the like of Samoa, Uruguay and Georgia have been treated like the bit players they are.

The Springboks were happy that anyone who wished to, could attend their first training run at the oval ground of the Aussie rules Fremantle Football Club on Monday, but while there were some fans in green jerseys and the odd South African flag to be seen there was very little evidence of what is said to be the largest expatriate South African community in the world.

A few fans have also turned up at the team’s seaside Esplanade Hotel, a marvellous balustraded building in a charming old world resort that is to Perth what Camps Bay is to Cape Town, but hardly the throng that one expected.

Still, the October 18 clash between South Africa and England is sell-out at the 43,000-capacity Subiaco Oval and officials in Western Australia are hoping that the momentum created by Rugby World Cup will enable them to establish a fourth Australian team in an expanded Super 12 competition to ensure that Perth (which is competing with Melbourne) stages regular test matches.

Western Australia officials are obviously in buoyant mood and one does not want to put down their enthusiasm but one can see only one outcome from that scenario – more players dragooned from the islands (Fiji, Tonga and Samoa) to make up the numbers and that, in the long run, can only be bad for rugby.