Peter Bills questions the extravagant prices charged for tickets to the dead-rubber Bledisloe Cup Test between New Zealand and Australia in Tokyo on Saturday in The New Zealand Herald.

"Tomorrow's match in Tokyo offers rugby fans a disturbing view of the game's future. If you wondered why earlier this year the IRB broke with tradition and announced the venue of not just the next Rugby World Cup but the next two, then all can be revealed. "For sure, it's a wheeze Blackadder's servant Baldrick would have been proud of. If the Bledisloe Cup's dead fourth rubber is any guideline, the 2019 Rugby World Cup which is to be staged in Japan will produce eye-watering ticket prices. "It seems the IRB's thinking is that if the tournament isn't going to take place there for another 10 years, the world has time to get used to the idea of super inflation mugging ticket prices for the sport's premier event. "For those who reckoned that $242 for the best tickets to watch Wales play Japan in a pool match at the 2007 Rugby World Cup and $850 for the most expensive ticket to the Paris final two years ago were decent asks, then I suggest you find a comfortable surface and lie down before you read about the ticket prices being charged in Tokyo this weekend for a Bledisloe Cup match which is irrelevant, the All Blacks having long since retained the trophy this year."