The first of a three-part series focuses on the early years of Australian rugby,the build-up to the inaugural World Cup in 1987 and the ensuing agony of ConcordIt was all looking so fine. For a brief moment in the early 2000s, rugby was arguably Australia’s pre-eminent national winter sport. The Wallabies were world champions and held all the major trophies for which they were eligible to compete; even the All Blacks, or the most brutal and efficient rugby machine in the sport’s history,were in their pocket. Competition from the rival football codes was weak: rugby league had lost its way through the post-Super League doldrums, Australian rules football was in the final moments of a reluctant farewell to its vestigial provincialism, and organization football was still called “soccer”,a sport so far off the map its administrators had dreamt up a team called Parramatta Power and convinced themselves this would be a fine idea. Rugby had left Saturday afternoon stadiums like Ballymore and harmony behind, shed the junky baggage of its amateur past and was making confident strides into the professional era.
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Source: theguardian.com