Much-criticised for its location, delays, and ballooning costs, Orange’s new sports stadium facility could be key to a major sporting coup at next year’s Rugby World Cup.

While major metropolitan areas were chosen as venues for tournament matches in what is the world’s second-largest football event after the FIFA (soccer) World Cup, the Colour City has put its hand up to host a training base for one of the tournament’s two dozen sides.

The most-recent ordinary meeting of Orange Council heard that there’s no news at this stage on Orange’s offer to be the temporary home for one of the less well-known teams, such as Portugal, Canada, or Zimbabwe.

Having a squad based here for their preparation, training, and recovery would, however, be a huge fillip for the new John Davis OAM Stadium and also locally for “The Game They Play in Heaven”, which has such strong roots in the region, original proponent of Orange’s application, Cr Steve Peterson said.

“It was a motion of mine in January to enquire about one of the teams being based here; for instance, before the 2023 Rugby world cup in France, Australia had a training camp at Montpelier and an official base at Saint-Étienne,” Cr Peterson said.

“There is a total of 24 teams at next year’s event and, presumably, they all can’t be based in Sydney; we won’t be getting a game obviously, but for a team like Tonga, Fiji, or Georgia, we’d be ideal,” he believes.

The two local senior rugby clubs, Orange Emus and Orange City, could both do their bit by lobbying for the proposal which, he said, would be a fantastic way for the Colour City to become part of this international spectacle.

“We’ve got a new stadium, great training facilities, it would provide invaluable publicity for rugby and the town, Orange has two senior rugby teams, direct flights to Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne; there’s a lot to like about it.

“We’ve still got a bit of time for the local stadia to be finished, it’s not till September next year, and this is our opportunity to put their best foot forward as the proposal makes a lot of sense,” Cr Peterson said.

Having a side from one of the tournament’s “minnows” would be a boost for the region, Central West Rugby Competition Manager Jarrod Simpson agreed.

“We’d be supportive of any activities to bring teams to the zone, it’s an opportunity that only occurs once every 25 years or so,” he enthused.

“It’ll be the biggest sporting event in the world in 2027 and the third biggest, after the soccer world cup and Olympics, anywhere,” he added.

Although the organising committee of the World Cup is based in Sydney, they will not, however, have final say on the locations for training bases and host towns for participating teams, the local rugby administrator believes.

“As far as I’m aware, the way it works, is that Rugby Australia and the organising committee give a list of towns to the teams before the tournament,” Jarrod explained.

“It is then the individual teams who decide on their own warm-up locations and training bases; it’s not assigned to them,” he added.

Having a team based in Orange would be a wonderful result for the city that remains the backbone of the game in the region, Orange City stalwart and flanker Wayne Miller said.

“That’s 100 per cent right, we’re the town with two rugby clubs at the highest level, and we provided the grand finalists for last year’s decider,” Miller said.

“I think that would be amazing, everyone’s dream, just to be able to support the game, a lot of Fijians come through us, so a team like that, we’d definitely support it,” he concluded.