Argentina, the cuckoo in rugby’s comfortable international nest, is one of four countries who will bid to host the 2015 World Cup. It has forwarded proposals to the IRB alongside England, South Africa and Japan and offers a further possibility of taking the global tournament beyond rugby’s traditional borders.

Their doing so emphasises the need for one hemisphere or the other to take Argentina into its fixture schedule. As bronze medal-winners at the last World Cup, they remain third in the IRB rankings and there are signs of the change needed that could introduce to Argentina’s domestic rugby the professional tier required before it can contemplate hosting a World Cup.

Last week its union elected a new chairman, Porfirio Carreras, and the IRB hopes that he will be the unifying force that helps to make Argentina a guiding light for the entire South American continent. “If a professional structure is not in place in Argentina, we can’t organise anything there,” Bernard Lapasset, the IRB chairman, said. “Argentina has the capacity to organise a big event like the World Cup but they need help from the outside.”

South Africa has considered the possibility of inviting two Argentine sides to compete in the Currie Cup, its provincial tournament, and each of the three Sanzar unions has considered a regular international fixture with Argentina, provided the Pumas, so many of whose players work in Europe, can guarantee fielding their strongest side.

When the IRB meets next year to decide the host nation for 2015, Lapasset believes the subsequent tournament’s host will also be determined. England, which failed six years ago in its bid to host the 2007 World Cup, has long pressed for host status to be decided over a longer term and Lapasset, the Frenchman who took up the reins from Syd Millar, from Ireland, last month, thinks that would help the development of the game.

He is conscious that the IRB was roundly criticised when Japan’s bid to host the 2011 World Cup was turned down in favour of New Zealand’s but the installation, from April, of a new Asian five-nations competition, sponsored by HSBC, will give Japan greater tournament experience. “Rugby is growing in popularity,” Lapasset said after last year’s World Cup in his own country, for which 230 television companies were accredited. “The most important thing now is how we organise rugby’s growth. We need to help Japan and I’m sure it would be successful for them to hold a World Cup.”

Lapasset, a vice-chairman of France’s Olympic committee, is convinced that rugby should push once more for the acceptance of sevens as an Olympic sport. He will meet Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, in Lausanne next month, buoyed by the enthusiasm Rogge expressed for last autumn’s World Cup.