We are heading south to tell you about rugby from down under. Rémi, based in Brisbane, gives us his view of the state of health of Australian rugby a year out from the World Cup kick-off.

2027 ticketing: “It’s already a bit tricky to get tickets”

Finding tickets for the matches, well yes, look, it’s pretty complicated all the same. The World Cup website recently opened a sort of early bird, presales for matches in the tournament. Basically, you had to register on the official site before a certain date, and then 24 hours later ticket sales opened.

The problem is that sales opened at midday. Personally, I logged on at 11 at night because I wasn’t available that day, and nightmare, nightmare, nightmare… I tried to get the France-Japan match, which is in Brisbane. All that was left were the “gold” category seats at an exorbitant price. All the seats in the other categories had already gone.

So I even looked for a quarter-final where, with a bit of luck, I reckon France might be involved. It was already sold out. So I think that’s only a small share of the tickets. I imagine they’ll release more in several different stages, but for now it’s a bit tricky to get tickets. I’ve got mates who managed to get some…

Brisbane has its mind on the 2032 Olympics, not yet on the World Cup

To be honest, you don’t hear a huge amount about the Rugby World Cup at the moment. I live in Brisbane. You have to remember that in 2032 there will be the summer Olympic Games. Right now that’s what fills the news the most: all the infrastructure building, road improvements, transport and so on. Plenty of it is up for debate, as in every city before the Olympics.

That’s what really makes the sports news here in Brisbane, more than the Rugby World Cup, even though that’s next year. Because for the World Cup the infrastructure already exists, and, yes, it will be spread across the whole of Australia. To be honest, you can’t really feel the World Cup momentum yet, but I think it’s something that will kick in during the course of next year, a few months before the start.

Even if, as it happens, Australia have just changed head coach, which is making plenty of headlines in the media at the moment. He’s a coach who is criticised by some and backed by others. If anything, people are talking about the Wallabies, but not so much about the World Cup.

The decline of the fifteen-a-side game: “The stadium is almost empty”

Fifteen-a-side rugby in Australia is indeed in decline. What you have to understand is that here there are two rugbys. There’s what is called rugby league, which is the thirteen-a-side game, and rugby union, which is fifteens. The most popular rugby is definitely league. It’s rather booming, expanding, growing, let’s say, whereas union is in decline.

There are several factors behind that. The Wallabies’ recent performances don’t exactly help union’s popularity. Conversely, rugby league is more popular because it’s also a faster game. It’s a game that’s growing in schools too. There’s a lot of promotion done in school settings and in clubs. It’s also often linked to touch rugby.

There really is a big difference in the number of registered players between the two rugbys, and in participants generally. But be careful, what you have to know is that rugby in general, even if it’s the cliché and the emblem of Australia, is not the most popular sport in terms of registered players. At the risk of surprising you, the sport with the most registered players here in Australia is football, soccer. It’s a sport that’s played a lot, particularly among youngsters, and even among veterans too.

Then there are other very popular sports like Australian rules football, cricket too, and then the more classic sports like basketball. Golf is also hugely popular. But fifteen-a-side rugby is in decline. To give you an example, if I go to the stadium in Brisbane to watch the Queensland Reds play, the stadium is almost empty, whereas Australians are really a people who turn out for shows, sporting events, concerts and so on. Rugby union doesn’t fill stadiums any more.