"Among the plans under consideration for future tournaments is awarding two at once, so that the venues for 2015 and 2019 would become known at the same time."

Coming soon, to a television screen near you, the quarter-final of Rugby World Cup France 2007 from...Cardiff.

Daft isn't it? And there are at last indications that the body with the power to do something about it, the International Rugby Board, is beginning to think so too.

Among the plans under consideration for future tournaments is awarding two at once, so that the venues for 2015 and 2019 would become known at the same time.
None of this is settled, but IRB chief executive Mike Miller last week gave a clear hint along these lines when he said "What we may do is decide to announce two World Cups at the same time."

He hinted that this might allow the IRB to be more adventurous in its choice of hosts, perhaps matching the award of a tournament to an established nation, followed by one in a developing rugby nation.

Again nothing is set in stone, and the IRB will continue to need an economic return on its flagship competition. Miller said, "Our £30m a year investment in the game depends on the rugby world cup."

But this sounds like good news for England, as yet the only known likely bidder for the 2015 tournament, which will be awarded in 2009, and perhaps for Japan, which had good reason to feel wounded over not getting 2011.

Each could also guarantee a good financial return. Japan offers rugby the double opportunity given to football when its World Cup was played in the USA in 1994, satisfying commercial and development priorities at the same time.

The IRB sees a longer-term system of awarding tournaments as giving hosts a chance to plan properly, avoiding worries like the fear that the Millennium Stadium would not be ready for the 1999 tournament.

It is also hoped that it will reduce the horse-trading, inevitable when 10 of the 21 votes on the Board are controlled by five nations close to each other in north-western Europe, that has distorted and diluted the European tournaments.

If it is to be regretted that the Welsh Rugby Union insisted on pressing their case for matches in this tournament, it should also be remembered that they were forced to make similar concessions to other unions - notably the RFU, which claimed both semi-finals for Twickenham - when they were nominal hosts in 1999.

If England does host in 2015, there should be an end, for that tournament at least, to dilution - the Celtic unions having done absolutely nothing to earn English gratitude by the disposition of their votes in the contest to stage this year's competition.

Qualifying is also set for fundamental reform. After the initial regional process, top teams will go into a final worldwide qualifying tournament a year before the World Cup finals.

It would be played through to a final, effectively a Division Two World Cup Final, with either the quarter or semi-finalists all progressing to the main tournament, depending on whether the IRB decides to stick with 20 in the finals or cut back to 16.

One possibility being mentioned in the French press is that it will be played for a trophy named after former IRB chairman Vernon Pugh. Few could argue with that choice. Unlike William Webb Ellis, whose name adorns the main trophy, Pugh - who died in 2003, undoubtedly did something for rugby.

He was the man who in 1995 had the courage and clarity of vision to denounce amateurism for the rotting, hypocritical, ideology-driven nonsense that it had become at the top end of the game. The IRB in particular, and rugby as a whole, still misses him.