LONG READ Mick Cleary: 'Appetites for adventures Down Under have been well and truly whetted'

The promo video for RWC 2027, an action-packed mash-up of Mad Max and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, looked as if it was going to be the highlight of an elongated draw conducted in a TV studio until the blockbuster last-ball pairing of New Zealand and Australia came out. Stick that in your calendars.

With the expanded 24-team format and Round of 16 schedule there is very little jeopardy at the early stage of the proceedings and certainly nothing to rival the shock-horror of the 2015 Pool of Death draw that saw hosts England line up alongside Australia and Wales. Bye-bye England, as it turned out. The same deflated-balloon feel afflicted the last Rugby World Cup in France when the horror show of two leading sides, France and Ireland, heading out of the tournament prematurely, duly unfolded. The sight of the hosts and impassioned Irish packing their bags a fortnight before the high-octane finale was deflating. No such worries for RWC 2027, mate. The party should go the distance.

Lessons have been learned and Australia 2027 promises to put on a show that will enchant and intrigue across the six weeks of the tournament. The country knows how to stage a big event as it showed in 2003, when it did so much to lay down the guiding parameters for all future Rugby World Cups. No more fragmentation, no more split country hosts, no more old-school horse-trading: RWC 2003 was tight, taut and fun. A win for Clive Woodward’s side boosted the profile of the sport in England and probably beyond.

The heavyweight nature of the putative opening fixture, the Wallabies against the All Blacks, in Perth on 1 October, 2027, should set the tone. The schedule is not decided until February but you don’t have to be a Don King-type boxing promoter to recognise the value of designating that fixture as the tournament’s mood-setter. It did just that in South Africa in 1995 when the Springboks showed what they were made of to a watching post-apartheid world when beating Australia against a Rainbow-nation backdrop in Cape Town.

This is a coveted chance for rugby union to show what it has to offer and to draw in the locals to the four-yearly festival of sporting excellence and shared experiences. Rumour has it drink might be taken.

Australia and New Zealand is not a rarity fixture given their regular trans-Tasman Bledisloe Cup encounters, but the tournament will revel in having such a spotlight thrown on it in two years’ time. Rugby union is a niche sport in Australia which reserves its sporting clamour for other football codes, notably rugby league and Aussie Rules.

Cricket gives the country its major international team sport dimension on home soil so this is a coveted chance for rugby union to show what it has to offer and to draw in the locals to the four-yearly festival of sporting excellence and shared experiences. Rumour has it drink might be taken. Certainly, one of the most notable positives from the 2003 World Cup was the organisers’ encouragement for Aussies to adopt a second team. There are plenty of options this time around with Hong Kong China making their debut, Zimbabwe back in the fold for the first time since 1991 and Portugal getting the chance to reprise their darlings-of-the-tournament billing from France 2023.

This is the biggest World Cup ever staged with 24 teams and a Round of 16. Given that the Springboks have just pulverised a so-called major nation, Wales, 73-0, on home turf, fears of blow-out scores in Australia would appear to be well-founded. However, things have changed and for the better. The big boys are a cut above, and South Africa currently a cut above that, but the gap in professional standards between a Portugal or Chile or Spain has closed, or at least, not grown crazily large. Of course, Hong Kong China will be right up against it but the draw-card impact of their presence for an Asian audience should off-set those concerns., legitimate as they are.

The abridgment to a six-week event means that it will all flash by, a welcome change from previous years when tournaments have hit a lull after a whizz-bang opening.

The expansion of the tournament does carry with it risks of one-sided outcomes but emerging countries need something to aim for. It’s worth a punt. The favourites in each Pool will also welcome the opportunity for rest and rotation given that the knockout Round of 16 will be quickly upon them. There are more teams but the abridgment to a six-week event means that it will all flash by, a welcome change from previous years when tournaments have hit a lull after a whizz-bang opening.

The fact that the RWC 2027 draw has now already taken place when FIFA doesn’t conduct its draw until Friday for the football World Cup that takes place next summer does seem incongruous. At least rugby is moving in the right direction in not having the farce of out-dated seedings coming back to bite it on the bum as it did last time around. Even so, there is plenty of scope for a shuffling in the rankings between now and kick-off time in Perth.

England, for example, have three tournaments and a likely 17 Tests between now and then. The draw has been kind to Steve Borthwick’s side even if it does reunite them with their 2015 nemesis, Wales. Projecting a route through is always a task laden with egg-on-face predictions but being first out of the hat of the senior seeds into Pool F means that England will not face another group winner until the semi-final stage. Italy are potential Round of 16 opponents while Australia might lurk in the quarter-final.

The news that the new Nations Championship will be screened free-to-air on ITV to complement its RWC rights-holding is terrific news for the sport. Rugby union needs reach as much as it needs money. It has the promise of both. It has added some much needed fizz surrounding what can be the rather sterile occasion of a World Cup draw. Suddenly there is greater connection. And as George Gregan and Jonny Wilkinson gave off their ‘Thelma & Louise’ vibes as they launched the RWC 2027 promo, appetites for adventures Down Under have been well and truly whetted.