We were deluding ourselves from the start with this fanciful bid
It wasn’t Scotland or Wales which sank our bid, it was our own fatal hubris that everything would turn out all right on the night
On the second floor of a nondescript three-storey building in downtown Douglas on the Isle of Man sits the registered headquarters of Rugby World Cup Limited. At least, we think it does. Not a large space, it still manages to share it with a private investment bank, a life assurance company and an international trust fund.
It has no phone number, and emails sent don’t even go to the Isle of Man, as the official headquarters are in Dublin. Still, it was here that our government had planned to send €137 million of public money via a hosting fee, hadits bid for the 2023 tournament somehow been successful.
