AT THE end of every World Cup, it’s almost de riguer for every World Rugby chairman to applaud the home nation for hosting ‘the greatest showpiece event in the history of the sport’.
True to form, Sir Bill Beaumont chose those words to pay Japan and the Japanese people the highest compliment. It would be churlish to cite at least two quarter-finals as examples of surprisingly subdued occasions because Japan will live long in the memory.
But the best World Cup of all? For me that title still belongs to South Africa 1995 because no tournament, before or since, succeeded in t...