In the afterglow of professionalism’s entry into to the world of rugby, Rugby Union, due to accepted viewpoints stemming from staid old attitudes towards professionally paid players, required far too much time to rearrange and adapt itself in meeting the demands of an international stage. Historically the game of rugby remained a completely amateur sport with players competing at the top level for no monetary compensation until 1995. In fact, prior to the first Rugby World Cup hosted by South Africa in 1995, players found to have received any form of compensation other than an approved match and gear fees summarily received a life ban from Rugby as a whole.
This all changed rapidly when post the massive success of the 1995 RWC found fired-up media moguls throwing money at the sport from all angles. Unable to halt or control the deluge of inflowing money, the International Rugby Board (IRB) post haste declared rugby union as a sport professional. The IRB finally crossed the Rubicon at the halfway mark of the Northern Hemisphere’s 1995/6 season, soon after in early 1996 the southern hemisphere’s Super 10 competition evolved into the fully professional Super 12 with the Auckland Blues walking the title.
The entry of professionalism into rugby for a great many supporters also marked the simultaneous conversion of betting on the various hotly contested series from a casual past-time affaire into a more serious profession and sport in itself. The advent of online bookmakers earmarked another great occasion in the life of a multitude of online punters. This is especially true for those on the hunt for bookmaker reviews, as sites such as Nostrabet focus their energies on providing punters with accurate and honest bookmaker reviews, betting tips and bookmaker bonuses, and that leads to a goldmine of reliable bookmaking resources that are invaluable.
It still took the next few years for rugby to overcome and settle down from the political and financial turbulence created by new management structures and rules, all brought about by the sudden influx of vast money reserves, new ideas, and attitudes that goes hand in hand with all forms of professional sports the world over.
Over the next few years, rugby settled well and firmly into its new well-fitting professional jacket, with teams and players improving vastly due to better training, coaches, equipment, and marketing. This together with certain fundamental rule changes to the game resulted in matches delivering far greater standards of play, providing the ever-exciting game of European style rugby with a much greater level of spectator appeal.
This initially convoluted road eventually led us to the 2019 Rugby World Cup, this time hosted by Japan will go down in the annals of rugby history as the first non-native rugby playing nation to host the greatest event in the sport. Anyone ever lucky enough to experience the look and feel amongst the crowds in the event stadiums could easily believe the game carried a thousand-year heritage in this only the 9th ever RWC.
Held only every four years for the honour of carrying home the RWC trophy, crowds will see 20 teams of committed men from different countries united by their love of one sport contest 48 ties employing an elimination style play during a 6-week period until ultimately on the 2nd of November just two teams will play in the final, competing for the title as World Rugby Champions.
