It is payback time for Japan, and Asia next Thursday, when the International Rugby Board gathers to decide who will host the 2011 Rugby World Cup at its council meeting in Dublin.
Japan will be up against traditional heavyweights New Zealand and South Africa in a race to host the seventh World Cup. For the good of the game worldwide, it is time that the IRB picked Japan, the first Asian country to put forward a bid to host what is claimed to be the third biggest sporting event in terms of global TV audience - behind the Olympics and soccer's World Cup.
It would be a just reward for Japan for without them there might not have been a World Cup to boast about today. Back in the 1980s, when the New Zealand Rugby Union convinced the IRB that a World Cup of rugby was feasible, it was the Japanese who stepped in with the financial backing courtesy of television conglomerate NEC, who mostly funded the 1987 World Cup.
'They provided the finance that enabled the inaugural World Cup to happen,' says Jamie Scott, secretary-general of the Asian Rugby Football Union, who will be voting on Thursday. 'And the expansion of the game worldwide has really stemmed from Asia. Japan and Asia have been in the forefront, and if the IRB's vision is to promote the game globally, a World Cup in Japan would be good.'
Japan's bid to break the North-South dominance will face a stern test as both New Zealand and South African unions will put forward compelling arguments that the World Cup return to their countries. New Zealand hosted the original tournament in 1987 while South Africa held it in 1995.
But compelling arguments aside, what matters is a choice between the old and the new, the past and the future. And the future of rugby lies in taking the World Cup to countries like Japan, so as to give the game the international flavour that is lacking at the moment - as demonstrated by the International Olympic Committee's decision in July to turn down rugby's bid to become an Olympic sport in 2012.
