Rugby World Cup 2011: Whole new ball game and yet it all comes back to original gang of four

PLUS ça change, plus c’est la meme chose. Rugby union has in many respects been transformed beyond recognition since it went professional a decade and a half ago, but this weekend’s World Cup semi-finals have a very familiar look to those who remember the first competition back in 1987.

New Zealand, Australia, Wales and France made it to the last four then, and they are here again. The All Blacks, joint hosts with Australia, were favourites then as now, and went on to become the first winners of the Webb Ellis Cup, beating France 29-9 in the final in Auckland.

If the French beat Wales tomorrow, and New Zealand get the better of the Wallabies on Sunday, the same teams will meet again in this year’s final – and in the third-place play-off. Wales beat the Australians in that one, winning 22-21 in Rotorua.

The shadow of apartheid hung over that tournament, for two distinct reasons. South Africa’s ban from international competition was maintained, depriving the event of one of the game’s great powers, and the All Blacks were captained by a man who would not have been given the role but for a rebel tour to the republic the previous year.

Scrum-half David Kirk was the skipper in question. He had become the captain almost by default in 1986, when he and winger John Kirwan were the only senior All Blacks to refuse to go on an unofficial tour to South Africa after the official visit had been cancelled.

The rebel touristss called themselves the Cavaliers, but for the New Zealand authorities it was no laughing matter. They dropped every man who went on tour for the following two Tests, leaving Kirk to captain the national team, now disparagingly dubbed the Baby Blacks. It was widely thought he would lose the captaincy and his place when the rebels returned for the World Cup, but he held on to both, and thus became the first player to hold the trophy aloft.

For the South Africans, there was an element of shame about the sight of the All Blacks being proclaimed world champions. No-one, they argued, could genuinely lay claim to that title until they had beaten the Springboks.

It was an argument they would cling on to throughout the remaining years of their international isolation, which took in the 1991 World Cup, won by Australia. Proud of their traditional strengths, particularly in forward play, they were unable to see how quickly rugby was evolving, and how far they were being left behind.

When they were re-admitted to the international arena the year after that second World Cup, the extent to which they had been left behind was laid bare. Remarkably, though, they caught up by the time the third World Cup came around, winning it on home soil in 1995.

Without the Springboks, the 1987 tournament was that bit easier for the All Blacks, and that bit more predictable in general. The Five Nations and the big two from the Southern Hemisphere all sailed through to the last eight, where they were joined by Fiji. In the quarter-finals, Scotland initiated a minor tradition by losing to New Zealand, while Wales got the better of England, Australia beat Ireland and France saw off the Fijians.

The Welsh were then hammered by the All Blacks, going down 49-6 in Brisbane, but were rightly proud of being able to finish third – an achievement which has been beyond them at every subsequent World Cup until now. The sun was setting on the golden age of Welsh rugby by 1987, but there were still glimmers of greatness from the likes of Jonathan Davies.

Because there is no-one in the current Wales squad to compare with Davies’ genius, and because the presence of the South Africans makes this year’s tournament more competitive, getting to the semi-finals is arguably a greater achievement now than it was back then. They did lose to the Springboks in their opening game in Pool D, but only 17-16.

And of course they may not be finished yet. A last-eight win over Ireland has taken them through to the upcoming meeting with a French side, who – plus ça change again – have veered from match to match between the abysmal and the sublime. Of course, while the semi-final line-up does show that some things remain the same in the world of international rugby, some things have moved on dramatically. The televising of the tournament for one thing: in 1987 the total world TV audience was 300 million; that had risen to four billion by 2007.

And attitudes to time off in those amateur days were almost diametrically opposed to what they are now. Back then, players were more likely to be criticised for failing to get uproariously drunk after a match than disciplined for sneaking out for a quick pint.

If drink was taken, well, that was rugby, wasn’t it? And if dwarves were thrown, we never heard about it.