The first thing to do in conversation with Alan Gilpin, chief executive of World Rugby, the day after an extraordinary World Cup play-off is to celebrate Chile, qualifiers for the first time after beating the USA 31-29 in Colorado, 52-51 on aggregate.
“Congratulations to them,” Gilpin says. “They’ve pulled together an incredibly committed, passionate team who believe in each other and were able to really hang in at times against a very good Eagles side.
“I think that’s a tribute to the work that the South American unions have done in their SLAR [Súperliga Americana de Rugby] competition that’s provided them in the last two years the platform to do what we’ve seen across this qualification campaign.”
Los Cóndores put Canada out then sent the Eagles, first beaten by Uruguay, to the brink of missing France next year.
Gilpin says: “To have Uruguay and Chile qualify is is a huge step forward for South American rugby and a huge step forward for rugby in Chile and they have an opportunity to inspire a lot more kids to play, which is fantastic.”
Chile will face continental rivals Argentina in Pool D – as well as England, Japan and Samoa.
The next order of business is to consider the impact of Chile’s victory on US rugby. The Eagles won the first qualifier 22-21, in a deluge on a Santiago mud-heap. Most thought they would seal qualification. Gilpin arrived in the Denver suburbs with plenty to do regarding the decision, announced in May, to play the 2031 men’s World Cup and 2033 women’s event on American soil.
Gary Gold’s Eagles were shattered by their last-gasp defeat. So were their followers across America. The US men have only missed one World Cup, South Africa 1995. Thanks to Francois Pienaar and Nelson Mandela that was one for the history books and Hollywood. World Rugby wants to have the sort of effect the 1994 World Cup had on American soccer. No US team in France next year? Tricky.
Does World Rugby – and the world of rugby – need the US to make it through the final qualification tournament for a World Cup place?
“I don’t think the game needs the US in France next year. I think the US plan will benefit significantly from the US being in France.
“But when we look more broadly, the US are about to have to two very credible teams playing the Sevens World Cup in Cape Town … we’ve got the LA Sevens just prior to that. You’ve got a US women’s team going to New Zealand to play in the Women’s World Cup.
“The men’s 15s challenge is a much bigger high-performance challenge.”
Gold’s Eagles do not have regular time together. Some play in Europe, many play in Major League Rugby. The US league has just finished its fifth season but domestic talent is relatively thin.
Voices within MLR say that as a private business looking to survive and expand, its first duty is to its own health, not to the production of American players. In Saturday’s World Cup playoff in Colorado a team built from 13 MLR franchises and overseas pros went down to a team almost entirely from one pro outfit, Selknam, which competes in SLAR.
Is the production of American talent a problem World Rugby wants fixed?
“It is. We spent a lot of time working with USA Rugby on ‘What does a future growth plan look like’ and awarding Rugby World Cups men’s and women’s to the US for 2031 and ’33 was always going to be part of a much broader plan, a 10-year plan to grow the sport in the US and that’s incredibly multifaceted, as you can imagine.
“That’s looking at everything from the relationships the game has at youth and high-school level through to what’s the college rugby opportunity and what does that mean for the sport. And beyond that the club infrastructure and into professional domestic rugby and at the moment that’s Major League Rugby and … that’s not providing a pathway that is being successful for US-qualified players.
“The Major League Rugby ownership group are well aware of that and there’s been some good discussions about how USA Rugby, Rugby Canada and MLR can be better aligned in those regards. But you know that that’s a balance between the North American professional franchise league model, it’s a business, and what we all want to see, high-performance pathways for the international teams.”
Gilpin says the Americas Rugby Championship, in which the US beat Chile between 2016 and 2019, is not due to return but plans are “quite advanced” for an “Asia Pacific Americas competition that will see USA, Canada, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina etc playing regularly”. Lower-tier nations are also due to get more meaningful games as part of the long-gestating reorganisation of the Test year.
Gilpin says the women’s game may provide another model, as “the women’s US team are benefiting from the fact that the core of that team are playing together regularly, albeit in a semi-professional competition overseas”, in England, where Alev Kelter plays for Saracens, Kate Zackary for Exeter and so on.
Other approaches have seen South American teams play in the Currie Cup and the Fijian Drua play in Australian domestic rugby before entering Super Rugby this year.
“We can really see the benefit” of such work, Gilpin says. “So that’s maybe a guide to what we need to do with some of the best of US talent, that young talent coming through, is concentrate them in a few places where they can really become a team. And I think that’s what we saw with Chile.”
Only one member of Chile’s starting XV in Colorado – and two on the eight-man bench – did not play for Selknam in SLAR. As Gilpin says: “These guys have played together a lot and when they were 19 points down early on, they didn’t panic. They believed in each other.”
To reach France, the US must win the final qualification tournament in Dubai in November, against Portugal, Kenya and in all probability Hong Kong, who face a tough play-off with Tonga this weekend.
The US have the highest world ranking and should expect to win the round-robin. But Gilpin offers a warning.
“Portugal are a good side. And they have echoes of what Chile have just done. Portugal have the Lusitanos in Super Cup, which we also funded and it’s interesting: that performance model is really working.”
The Rugby Europe Super Cup, below the main European club competitions, features teams from Georgia (two), Romania, Israel, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium. Lusitanos made this year’s final, losing to Black Lion of Georgia. The Lusitanos squad is entirely Portuguese, boosting the national team.
“So they have a lot of time together. They’ll play a very, very similar game to Chile.”
The Eagles stand advised.
“It will be a great achievement for the US to qualify for France next year,” Gilpin says. “I think that’ll be a big boost. But I don’t think it changes what we need to do in the next five, six, seven, eight or nine years” before the World Cup comes to town.
