Rugby World C-ock-up

Now you might think this is going to be a rant from a Scot about cancelled matches, unfair advantages to the World Rugby paymasters and general Small Guy Syndrome.

It may well be SGS, but not at the international level. Let me explain.

My local club plays at Level 8 - proper rugby in the mud stuff. Today was all set. Open early for bacon rolls, watch England's big match, live music, lunch served before the afternoon cup game which also ended up being cancelled because the other side though it better to 'concentrate on the league'.

That aside, the costs associated with the day were definitely down to the missing morning match. The bacon is now safe in various members' freezers, the brown and red sauce will keep for another day and the bread rolls will be consumed by the pigs of a farmer member who has generously agreed to buy them at cost.

There are several things that extrapolate from all this.

In our case the club always looked the world cup as a windfall which would build in financial resilience for a couple of years. I do know of clubs who built in to their budgets and are looking a bit sick today given that the food and beer revenue won't happen.

The biggest concern though is that the administrators of elite level rugby are blissfully unaware that their decisions would have such an effect on the grass roots of the game they purport to support.

Long gone are the days when rugby was a grass roots up game. These days its all top down.

This rant could go on for pages, but that'll do for now.