Alan, the host selection process has just been announced for Rugby World Cup 2023. Tell us a little bit more about what that means.

For us it is the start of the process of consulting with countries, and in our case member unions, who are interested in hosting the event. The process is scheduled to end in May 2017. Looking ahead to 2023 we wanted to have the opportunity to share a lot more information with those countries who are interested, and to make this year, Rugby World Cup 2015, meaningful for them as an experience and to help them understand the scale of what they will be getting involved with.

Two tournaments were announced together last time around, 2015 in England and 2019 in Japan. What’s the thinking behind the approach of just choosing 2023 on this occasion?

Going back to 2008 and 2009 when the previous processes were run, there was a vision for a longer term plan and that obviously led to Japan being selected. That’s a new market for Rugby World Cup in the sense that it’s the first time a Rugby World Cup will be in Asia. There are a number of lessons that have come out of that process and I think one of them is that we need to focus very closely on what we are doing for the shorter term, not that 2023 feels like a short-term focus. So now we are looking at just identifying the host for 2023.

What are World Rugby’s priorities for Rugby World Cup 2023? 

The priorities haven’t really changed from where we are now in 2015 for this World Cup year and then leading into 2019. Rugby World Cup is the opportunity for World Rugby to project itself further into a global stage, open up new markets both in a participation sense but also obviously through the broadcast of the tournament, to maximise the opportunity we have to grow the sport and also to generate the revenue we use on a four-yearly basis. Those remain the priorities for 2023 and we are delighted to be starting that process now.

Are there any frontrunners or countries who have openly expressed an interest even at this early stage?

There are indeed. We have strong declared interest from both Ireland and South Africa. Ireland have been very vocal about their desire to host the event. It is very much an Ireland and Northern Ireland united bid, which is fantastic, and it has some great qualities to it. South Africa have come out very strongly and have obviously hosted a Rugby World Cup in the past, but a long time ago in 1995, and are very keen to host a Rugby World Cup again. They have been a bidder for a number of recent tournaments, so we have those two publicly declared and a number of other countries who are talking to us behind the scenes as well.

The venues for Japan 2019 were announced this week. What are the biggest hurdles to hosting the tournament in Japan?

It’s been a really exciting week for us with our colleagues in Japan 2019. There is now a fantastic platform for them in relation to the promotion of the tournament. The work in understanding what the approved, selected and announced venues need to do to get up to Rugby World Cup standard starts now, from the exciting plans around the new national stadium in Tokyo and the new stadium in the Kamaishi area that was hit by a tragic tsunami a number of years ago through to some of the fantastic venues they built and had in place for the football World Cup in 2002. Then the really the big challenge for Japan, and the challenge we will working with them on, is the marketing, promotion and ultimately the ticketing strategy for the tournament. Obviously we’ll be looking for synergies with Tokyo 2020 to see how we can make the two great events work together.

We’ve recently just hit the 200 days to go mark for RWC 2015, that must really focus the minds on England 2015?

It does. Before you know it, we’ll quickly get to the 100 days to go milestone. The clock feels like it is running very fast. But we have got a great organising committee for 2015 with a huge amount of experience and expertise, and I think it is fair to say with just over six months to go to the start of the tournament we couldn’t really be in any better shape than we are now. The tickets have sold fantastically, the demand remains very strong for the tickets that remain and now we're really into the testing and readiness stage as we move ever closer to the tournament. These are exciting times.