Glenn Gibbons: Rugby can’t compare to football on world stage

THE return of Scotland’s rugby squad as the first in history to fail to progress to the second stage of the World Cup – a kind of topsy-turvy version of the national football team’s record in their global contest – will doubtless tempt a substantial number of people to draw comparisons between the merits of the two groups.

It is an urge that should be resisted, on the grounds that the statistics say less about the respective personnel than they do about the major differences between the two codes. Even the rugby players themselves are unlikely to argue that the pot they have been chasing in New Zealand can truthfully be regarded as a “World” Cup, when only a handful of countries on the entire planet are able to consider the game as either their national sport or one of the top three. While such universally recognised giants of world sport as the USA and Russia were represented at this year’s tournament, they play rugby with the same fervour as the Scots pursue lacrosse. In alphabetical order, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Wales could be considered the most zealous participants in rugby union. In England, it would be a distance behind football and cricket (and perhaps even rugby league), but they have a large enough population to ensure a telling presence in the Webb Ellis game.

The populations of the other three members of Europe’s Six Nations confederation, France, Ireland and Italy, are also distracted in greater numbers by other pursuits, such as football, cycling and, in the case of the Irish, certain indigenous sports.

Craig Levein’s squad’s European championship qualifying double-header against Liechtenstein and Spain in the next three days will provide further evidence of how difficult it is nowadays for a small country to excel in a game which the rest of the world takes very seriously. And that will be before they even get to Alicante.