As the curtain draws down on the preliminary stages of the World Cup, there will be plenty reflecting on the games that have been played to this point. For many teams it will be no surprise that they will be playing no further role as the tournament progresses to the knock-out stages. Infact, for a number, there will probably be a sense of relief that it is over and they can now sit back and watch the spectacle from a pub with their preferred poison in hand.
A couple of days ago a work colleague questioned the relevance of having some of these 3rd tiered teams participating in the World Cup. Teams such as Namibia who have been smashed across the rugby pitch and who no one expects to win one game forget making it to the semis. It is a valid question especially to those who have grown up in a country that is constantly in the top 5 ranked teams in world rugby and further to that, usually puts up a decent performance in any representative sport she participates in.
Having grown up in a country known only for her runners and wildlife, I naturally have a different perspective and I share it with you.
Like any nation, Kenya always aspires to compete on the grandest stage of any sporting event - Soccer WC, Rugby WC, etc. More often than not, we fail to qualify for these events for a myriad of reasons and perhaps it is also fair to say Kenyans have low expecations qualifying for these events. Not a defeatist attitude but rather a pragmatic view point and recognition of how far we are from achieving what we would like to accomplish. This guides us towards what we need to have in place to get to where we want to be and this is the point of this post.
I still recall the excitement of receiving a letter from the Kenya RFU confirming selection to the Kenya Team and an “invitation” to squad training for a pre-qualifying World Cup game. For those of you unaware, the minnows in world rugby go through a series of qualifying rounds to make it to the World Cup..no automatic qualifications for these guys. In many cases, these qualifying rounds start about 2-3 years out from a World Cup year.
What these games represented at the time – and I believe still do - was an opportunity to play in a “mini world cup”. The mini world cup, by my definition, is those series of World Cup (pre) qualifying rounds I alluded to earlier where minnows square off against each other in regional pools and stages for the right to play at the World Cup. The challenge is to top your pool and proceed to the next stage (which obviously represents a tougher level of competition) and so on.
These are games with a purpose..not just your occasional friendly or annual get-together-usual-suspects-tournament stuff that few pay attention to. That sense of purpose is important not only for the players (retention and attraction) and coaching staff but also gives rugby some relevance to the broader community and for some time promotes and boosts the profile of the game. With this comes the media attention; line up of sponsors; fair-weather fans jumping back on board the band wagon..hopefully the team wins a few games and even progresses beyond the limited expectations.
At the end of it is, hopefully, a re-engergized local game. Sure, the fortunate minnows may get walloped once they make it to the final 20 and that may not be what the broader spectators want to see. But as we have witnessed this World Cup, if you want to see rugby expand in those outposts of world rugby, then there should be a place for the Namibias, Russias, Romanias..hopefully one day Kenya's name will be up there too (as it is in 7s).
Enjoy your flight home Minnows..well done.
