Jurie Roux urges Ireland to 'take moral high ground'
The CEO of the South Africa rugby union Jurie Roux has urged Ireland to take the moral high ground.
It follows the recommendation that South Africa hosts the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
The team behind Ireland’s bid insist that the race to stage the tournament is not dead.
They're urging voting nations to disregard the recommendation and vote for what the technical to be the third best bid.
Jurie Roux feels Ireland would be better served to bow out of the contest and accept defeat instead of canvassing for votes for what has been deemed to be an inferior bid:
"Hopefully Ireland and France, like us, will stick to the moral high ground," Roux said.
"You can't add any more information, you can't present to anybody, you can't do any more presentations, all you can do is ask for the process to take its normal course and hopefully not be part of anything untoward.
"What we will do is keep on feeding information on our bid and the fact that we're grateful that we're over the first hurdle.
"Other than that, we honestly can't do anything other than walk into the council meeting and hope that everybody has made the right decision."
The All Blacks backing will be going to the South Africa bid:
"It's fair to say we will be heavily influenced by the recommendation," Steve Tew, the NZRU chief executive, said last month.
"It seems odd to have an independent evaluation process done and then ignore the recommendation.
"Unless there is a very, very good reason to do that. We don't play any other games in rugby, so that is where we are at."
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