The World Cup is much more than a footy tournament. It is a seven-week immersion in party mode, cultural experiences, sharing the love of the game and seeing a unique part of the world through a rugby lens.

Very few go the whole distance, preferring to dive in for 17-day tastes in the pool games currently underway or holding fire for the cut-throat matches when the quarter-finals begin.

World Cup touring has evolved.

At the 1991 tournament, you could walk down Grafton Mall in Dublin and buy a cap or tour booklet off a Wallaby selling them directly to the public to add more cash to their “tour fund” in the amateur days.

True. You could purchase a cap from Tim Horan, Rod McCall, Brendan Nasser and co. You could have a drink with non-playing Wallabies Richard Tombs or David Knox at Bad Bob’s Bar in the same city during tournament time too because a midweek drink was still part of the high-performance guidelines of the day.

How open the Wallabies were with the local fans was one of the reasons the Irish supported Australia so wholeheartedly in the famous semi-final win over the All Blacks at the old Lansdowne Road.

It didn’t matter that the Irish had just had hearts broken by a last-gasp Michael Lynagh try to dump them from the tournament.
“Dressed in black, hearts of stone” was the Irish media take on the unsmiling All Blacks who did little to court Irish fans.

By the time the 1991 tournament had concluded with an historic victory at Twickenham over England in the final, the Wallabies were world champions.

The tournament spawned legends on the field with the “Wizard of Oz” moniker for David Campese totally deserved. He was at his mesmerising best eluding tacklers and giving stardust to the whole event. There wasn’t even an official Player of the Tournament award until Campese’s deeds created the notion.

That tournament also created an Australia-wide passion for rugby that had never reached such heights before. It was the day of the fax and the Wallabies team room in Surrey was covered in messages of support before the final.

They weren’t just from Brisbane and Sydney but country centres and outposts in all states. The players saw the impact the Wallabies were having as a national favourite like never before.

The best message by far came from a Melbourne barrister. He was a rugby nut and was swept up when his daughter was born on October 27, 1991, the day the Wallabies toppled the All Blacks in the semi-final.

His daughter has been the biggest name in rugby ever since. He posted a birth notice for Harriet Elizabeth Nicola Farr-Jones Davina Campese Wallaby Geddes.

Of course, a rugby tour is about the footy but it’s so much more. No World Cup fan went to Japan in 2019 without murdering a song in a proper karaoke booth or tasting sushi supreme.

One tour group awards a John Eales Medal every day on tour in the form of a mini-Eales figurine on an official World Cup lanyard. The recipient always has a better time than any player at this high-pressure tournament.

It honours the latest home each night, spontaneous bloopers or a Wollongong lady’s embarrassment that most sculptures in Musee Rude have a large nude component.

Cycling through the vineyards and stunning Montrachet countryside, outside Beaune? What an escape. You don’t find that option on the way to Penrith Stadium. Stops for nine wine tastings, lunch and sharing a pinot noir grape with pickers during the French harvest crescendo is as much to do with rugby touring as the rugby ball.

This week, many more have been on a pilgrimage to the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux where so many young Australians paid the ultimate sacrifice to help turn World War One.

In all, 10 Wallabies were killed during World War One, including William “Twit” Tasker, on whose grave captain Will Skelton placed a gold jersey when the 2023 Wallabies arrived in France.  Tasker wrote of a Wallaby team-mate, who gave his life, “he earned the Victoria Cross nearly every day.”

It is such an emotional experience to watch travellers pay tribute to a great uncle listed on the wall of remembrance but with no known grave or others realising the sacrifice when so many gravestones mark the end of 20 and 21-year-old lives.

You wonder if the 2023 squad distilled a message as the 1999 World Cup-winning Wallabies did on a visit a year before their triumph. Then-coach Rod Macqueen used stirring words about what young, united Australians could achieve on French soil so far from home in his final address before the 1999 final.

Those Aussies who were part of the sellout crowds in Paris for the France-New Zealand blockbuster and the Wallabies win over Georgia know where the French got their scrummaging skills. Queues of up to 40 minutes just to get a cold beer were commonplace.

The gendarmes kept busy controlling football crowds were idle, even if holstered guns and semi-automatic weapons is a little confronting. Good humour and fun has been everywhere with the rugby with none of the hooligan streak of the round-ball code.

Every week ends with the serious stuff … the game. Or rather the result. The Wallabies face a quality Fijian side (early on Monday morning AEST) and there are those who are worried.

The Wallabies have the forward clout and hopefully the game-management sense to pressure the Fijians consistently. These are the games where young playmakers like Carter Gordon and Ben Donaldson have to play less to get a better result. Tackling like demons is a must too just as the Welsh did to quell the islanders in their thriller.

For Wallabies of Fijian heritage like centre Samu Kerevi, winger Mark Nawaqanitawase and Rob Valetini, the game has even more significance.

The Wallabies will win this one but just how far they go in a tournament is still a huge question mark. Their legion of touring fans will hold their breath at every floating kick direct into Fijian hands and cheer every Australian line-break in attack.

Just know that rugby touring is about so much more. Vive la France.

JIM TUCKER has specialised in sport, the wider impacts and features for most of his 40 years writing in the media. He is in France leading a 42-strong tour group at his eighth Rugby World Cup.