Tournament blueprint uncanny

Press, 12 June 1987, Page 32

Tournament blueprint uncanny

By

JOHN BROOKS

Is Terry Godwin rugby’s greatest crystal ball gazer, or are the World Cup organisers avid readers of the Guinness Book of Rugby Facts and Feats?

Those questions are most apposite at this time of the first attempt at a global footballing championship, because the Guinness book, written largely by Godwin, contained the blueprint of the current event six years in advance.

In a final chapter entitled "Anatomy of a World Cup,” Godwin proposes a championship of 16 teams, drafted into four pools of four, with pool winners playing the runners-up of other divisions in the quarter-finals, leading to sudden-death semi-finals and, ultimately, a final. Brilliant! The limits of coincidence are severely strained by Godwin's choice of Australia, England, Japan and the United States as the competitors in pool one. Fortunately for the cup organisers, the other pool combinations are varied; otherwise it could be presumed that the entire format was pinched from Guinness. As it is, Godwin’s broad plan has been faithfully followed. The author, an English journalist, outlined a wider plan at the start, with eight zonal contests among the lesser rugby playing countries. An elite group of the eight International Rugby Board nations was awarded automatic places in the final 16, and a further eight countries were pitted against the zone , winners in elimination matches for* - the last eight places. Terry Godwin selected 14 of the present World Cup contestants correctly when .' he-wrote his farseeing; article in : 1981. Understandably, at .that. 1

time, he included South Africa, and, interestingly enough, he also chose the Soviet Union — omitting Zimbabwe and Tonga — each of which was named as a zone winner. ' He nominated the Springboks to win one pool from Wales, the All Blacks to wip another from Ireland, and tipped Scotland to prevail against France in a third. English rugby must have been on a high six years ago — or perhaps some old-fashioned parochialism crept in — because Godwin had England winning its pool from Australia. Both sides advanced to his theoretical semi-finals, England beating France, and Australia downing Scotland. South Africa and New Zealand were the other qualifiers, overcoming Ireland and Wales respectively. After charting the entire event with such uncanny perception, Godwin came.horribly unstuck in the final stage; He nominated England and South ..Africa., as his : ’finalists, with the All Blacks and. the Wallabies playing off forthird in a Twicken- ' ham curtain-raiser?; > He left the-outcome of these games to his 'readers.;, ; .