Fantastic. Sevens, obviously. XVs would not fit into the Olympic program due to timing constraints. It would be fantastic, too, to see teams like Fiji and Samoa up there on the podiums, and sevens would get them that opportunity.
I think the format ought to involve 12 teams in 4 groups of 3 leading to semis and the final. That way we'd get a quality competition with high drama - every match a potential make or break match.
Firstly, however, rugby needs to get its house in order. The IOC is unlikely to admit an organization comprised of almost 100 members, which is dominated by eight of them.
This is something I do not understand about rugby administration. We have teams like Argentina, Fiji and Samoa beating teams like France, Scotland, Ireland and Wales at the World Cup on an almost regular basis now. Why aren't those teams's national unions afforded the same degree of representation on the IRB?
We also have unions such as Japan and the United States representing a far great player base than the likes of Scotland and Ireland. Same question.
So what is the criteria here? History? Why, that would be stupid. Let's at least put the future before the past if we are intending to move forward at all.
The current structure serves to disadvantage the vast majority of the unions the IRB is comprised of. How can the sport expect Olympic inclusion under those circumstances.
Furthermore, elite competitions, evidently closed to outsiders regardless of merit, also disadvantage those not involved. This is one good reason XVs, at least, ought not to be added to the Olympics program.
It seems to me that the Six Nations is a grand old tournament, but that it is holding back the development of the game in the region. We have seen a team like Romania reach the level where it was able not only to beat Five Nations teams home and away, but to defeat the Five Nations champion.
Left on the outside without regular competition, however, they faded away to become easy-beats for the Five Nations teams once again. That process is inevitable. There's nothing mysterious about it.
Neither is there anything mysterious that teams like Scotland and Ireland, with relatively limited resources, have managed to remain up among the elite teams for more than a century.
Rugby, more than most, is a sport where your own standards will be largely determined by the opposition you meet most regularly.
The eight unions which dominate the IRB have prevented the rest, Italy since 2000 notwithstanding, from attaining elite status, simply by virtue of keeping them out of elite competitions.
Most extraordinary is that there is virtually no way these teams, such as the current Pumas side or the Romanian giant-killers of the 80s, can earn their way into elite competitions. For there is no open membership, no qualifying tournament, and not even a promotion-relegation system.
This last seems, to me, the natural point of entry if rugby genuinely wants to move forward as an international sport. Add a promotion-relegation match to the Six Nations and an expanded Tri Nations.
Now, before you hit the panic button over tradition, sponsors, standards, gates, etc, let me suggest that this promotion-relegation match could, for the foreseeable future, be played at the home ground of the team defending its place in the elite competition. That way its opposition would have to be not just superior, but decisively superior, to supplant it.
For instance, Romania, Georgia or Portugal would have to go to Italy, Scotland or Ireland and win there in order to replace them in the Six Nations. Romania of the 80s aside, I can think of no time in history when such a scenario would have been plausible.
But at least they would have the opportunity, and the all-important incentive to better themselves. That's what I'm driving at. Right now there is none, other than qualfiying for a World Cup at which they are destined to be whipping boys, having been deprived of the lessons necessary to prepare for the big exam.
The Tri Nations could perhaps go to a Five Nations, initially adding Argentina and Fiji, and again there would be the promotion-relegation fixture at the conclusion of the competition.
Eventually one would hope to see the Southern Hemisphere break up into more regionalised competitions. I would like to see the Pacific Six Nations (is it a Five Nations now Australia has pulled out?) become a full international tournament with New Zealand fielding a test team (even if not its best).
While Argentina waits for inclusion in an expanded Tri Nations, why not organise an annual trophy match between the Pumas and Springboks? That would be a start. The Hugo Porta Cup, for instance. It was the Bledisloe Cup that helped bring Australia up to speed, afterall.
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