As my colleague Philip Barker has pointed out in his well-researched history of rugby union in the Olympic context which forms the current Big Read on insidethegames.biz, the next 12 months will be some of the most momentous in the game as a World Cup involving 20 nations is followed by a return to the Olympic Games after a gap of 92 years.

For many followers of the English game, the final which the co-host nation reached in 1991, when they lost 12-6 to Australia, will always be marred by the memory of the home break late in the game which was thwarted by what was seen – in home eyes at least – as a deliberate piece of foul play by David Campese.

Australia were 12-3 up when England engineered an overlap in an attack, but as Peter Winterbottom passed out to the unmarked Rory Underwood the ball was knocked down by the Australian winger.

England’s players claimed a penalty try for what they felt was a deliberate knock-on. Instead they got a penalty, which full back Jonathan Webb converted. No further points were scored, and Australia thus followed the team they had defeated in the semi-final, arch-rival New Zealand, as world champions.

Before the final, Campese heavily criticised England’s grinding progress to the final through tactics that relied heavily upon their forward power. For whatever reason, the England tactics changed for the final, but the new style of play did not do the trick.

Twelve years later, under the direction of a former swashbuckler of a centre, Clive Woodward, England stuck to Grinding Plan A all the way to extra time in the final before returning from Australia with the Cup after defeating the hosts 20-17. A historic mirror of revenge.

Rewind five years from that, and the 36-year-old Campese was making his farewell appearances in an Australian shirt in the form of rugby that will be seen at the Rio Oympics next year – that is, rugby sevens.

His game, as I was privileged to see at first hand in the Petaling Jaya stadium in Kuala Lumpur, hosts of the 1998 Commonwealth Games, still retained all of its guile if not all of its speed.

His mouth, as England’s hastily assembled team soon discovered, had lost nothing over the years.

With characteristic tact, Campo described the team England had sent to the Games – after its allowed quota of time to have the services of club players had been used up by the 15-man game – as “a f---ing disgrace”.

To be fair, England’s coach Andrew Harriman – a Cambridge graduate known as “Prince” for the logical reason that his father was a Nigerian chief – had admitted before the competition began that his collection of international fringe players amounted to “a scratch side.”

In the end, an international career which had begun in 1982 ended with Campese skipping like a lamb in celebration after Australia had earned bronze by beating Samoa.

By the close of a steamy final night of superlative competition, New Zealand’s man-mountain Jonah Lomu was topless, triumphant and tearful after leading his country to the first Commonwealth rugby title with a 21-12 win over the reigning World Cup Sevens champions Fiji.

The Fijians, Christians to a man, bore a biblical reference on their shirts – “I can do all things that God has strengthened me to” (Phil. 4:13). But against the power of Lomu they didn’t have a prayer.

So delighted were the All Blacks, whose morale had been shaken by recent Tri Nations defeats, that they celebrated with the haka, and then did a haka reprise for their supporters on the far side of the stadium.

If the debut of rugby sevens as an Olympic sport matches its impact as a debutant Commonwealth sport in Kuala Lumpur then all who witness it in Rio are in for a treat.

Among those watching the KL rugby was Jerry Montgomery, sports director for the Games due to take place four years later in Manchester.

Having mentioned 14 individual sports in its original bid document, the Manchester 2002 team had additional space for two other team sports apart from netball, where Tracey Neville, sister of Manchester United’s footballing brothers Gary and Phil, was due to play a starring role for the home nation.

Montgomery’s comments after the final offered an early indication of rugby’s chances of claiming one of those places – “Can you imagine rugby sevens at Old Trafford? I am almost wetting my trousers….”

And four years later it came to pass – or almost, as New Zealand retained their title at the purpose-built City of Manchester Stadium which now houses City rather than United under its new moniker of the Etihad Stadium.

The Melbourne 2006 Games also featured rugby sevens as an optional sport, after which it became a core sport for the Commonwealths, a status it has held at the 2010 Delhi Games and last year’s Games in Glasgow.

Three years from now, at the 21st Games on Australia’s Gold Coast, the men’s rugby sevens will be complemented by a tournament for female players.  

It’s a winning formula. And now the men’s sevens is established in the Games, how long can it be, in these Agenda 2020 days, before the Olympics adds women’s sevens rugby to its programme?