By Tournament / Rugby World Cup

The IRB has today revealed that a record ten unions have made bids to host the Rugby World Cup in either 2015 or 2019, including surprise bids from Russia and Jamaica, both of whom didn't qualify for the 2007 World Cup. Australia, England, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Scotland, South Africa and Wales have made bids to stage the 2015 tournament, while Australia, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Russia, Scotland, South Africa and Wales are want to host in 2019.

IRB honcho Bernard Lapasset had this to say about it all, "This is tremendous news for Rugby World Cup. The fact that 10 member unions have signalled their intention to tender for the 2015 and 2019 tournaments reflects the growing global prestige of the Rugby World Cup. The IRB Council will announce the RWC 2015 and 2019 host unions in July 2009, six years prior to the first tournament and 10 years prior to the 2019 event."

Italy will bid to stage the World Cup in 2015 or 2019, going head-to-head with Japan, Australia and a joint-venture from England and Wales for the rights to host the four-yearly showpiece. We think it'd be great - ice-cream, wine, olives... 24 drinking laws. Here's a few others.

Positives

It's not as if they will be interrupting some top level competition
Vigorello Cru I.G.T- The supertuscan wine from the Chianti Classico zone
Classical music and dance against the back-drop of the city of the beautiful towers in San Gimignano
The trophy being presented by the Pope
Rugby players will fit well in with the tight nipple showing fashion sense
Our headquarters being on a gondola

Negatives

Not cheap
"Mi mostra la maniera alla casa di spiedino di carne?" Hard old slog to ask for a kebab
Historically not a good place for England - penalty heartbreak and potential tears from Cipriani would be too much to take.
Match-fixing at an all-time high courtesy of the mob
The wife would insist on coming and drag you to art galleries and poppy fields between games.

Did you know the ICC, IOC and FIFA don't even charge the hosts of their respected World Cups and Olympics a flat fee, let alone tax. The sports respective governing bodies even assist the media, television and sponsorship rights to stage sports grandest competitions.

Australian rugby expert, Greg Growden, has labeled the International Rugby Board "The cash cow" in his column for Rugby Heaven, for its "greedy approach in demanding squillions from anyone who wants to stage the World Cup."

The IRB are demanding £120million to host the 2019 World Cup, a 'weekly Lidl supermarket shops worth' of £20million more than the 2015 entertainers, including a massive up-front tournament fee.

Hardly a drop in the pond, it is the latest spike to pierce rugby's tentative skin. And where does this leave growing nations, such as Japan?

The Japanese honed high hopes of staging the 2011 showpiece event to promote god's great game, but side-pots including some of rugby's other superpowers handed the tournament to the All-Blacks.

But such astronomic figures illustrate a massive gamble for any country. As the bank holding all the cards, why aren't the IRB concentrating on fostering and promoting a healthy future by enabling upcoming nations a reasonable shot at the title?

Look at what the FIFA Football World Cup in 1994 did for USA. They now have a professional league, a national team ranked in the world's top-20.

The IRB may have missed a trick in 2011, but the hemisphere switching tradition must be broken in 2015 to give a rise to some new rugby fanatics.

England need Wales. That's the bottom line cos Stone Cold said so.... He didn't, we did, but if the RFU are seriously considering a serious proposal for the Rugby World Cup, unlike pre-2007, then Francis Baron needs to buy David Pickering more than the odd dinner.

Jotting down a list of eight venues, the Liberty Stadium, the Millennium Stadium and Cardiff's new City Stadium are crucial hosts, purely in terms of capacity rather than spreading the demographic and any excuse to venture down Caroline Street for chicken off the floor.

The brutal reality is that most of England's suitable rugby stadiums are shared with football clubs. Adams Park, the Madjeski Stadium and Vicarage Road would all be surplus to requirements because of the football season already being in full swing. It's not even like anyone decent plays there either!

Headingley would provide hospitality for the north with Welford Road, Franklins Gardens and the Sixways covering ground in the Midlands.

Kingsholm's extra lick of paint has turned it into a fine house for the partisan West Country public, and all of the above can hold 15,000 or more.

The main rivals include Australia, who hosted a magnificent tournament in 2003, as well as Japan, who narrowly missed out in 2011, but they are more likely to stage the 2019 trophy.

England tick the box as being one of the world's senior core markets and Wales successfully hosted the inaugural IRB Junior World Championship in 2008.

Pros and cons of England & Wales joint bid

Pros:

£100m guarantee would be financially viable - seeing as the RFU are loaded

Travel links are already in place and we don't mean a six hour flight from Perth to Brisbane - just standing for the six hour train journey from London to Swansea

A cosmopolitan invasion - lots more excuses to have a pint and chat about refereeing shockers

The language - can you imagine asking for a pie & chips in Japanese - パイおよび破片は喜ぶ? Exactly!

Cons:

Nights out in Newport

Having to miss Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway because of a heavyweight clash between Tonga vs. Georgia,

Spending lots of those Christmas savings on all things rugby (could be a good thing?)

Trips to IKEA the morning complete with stinging hangover after a 12-hour swill & hitting that naughty curry house.

The Rugby World Cup 2011 pool draw will be held inside a giant inflatable rugby ball venue in London on December 1.

The ball will be erected near Tower Bridge at Potters Field Park and will coincide with the southern hemisphere's elite Autumn tours, following England's tussle with the All-Blacks a day earlier, further spicing up the IRB world rankings.