In their infinite wisdom, World Rugby chose to schedule the World Cup in a country that is prone to typhoons at this time of year, and to make absolutely no contingency plans should a typhoon threaten.
In a development that appears to have taken the organisers completely by surprise, there is a typhoon headed in Japan’s direction, and two matches have been cancelled, with Japan v Scotland still in doubt.
France will miss out on the possibility of beating England to top their group, and Italy will miss out on a historic chance to beat the All-Blacks and progress to the quarter-finals for the first time.
All right, nobody thinks that Italy would have beaten New Zealand, but it’s a funny old game and a couple of red cards, or another sneaky peek at the rule-book, could have produced the upset of the century. Apparently we’ll never know.
As Parisse said:
“It is ridiculous that a decision of this nature has been made because it isn’t like the fans arrived yesterday. It is ridiculous that there was no plan B, because it isn’t news that typhoons hit Japan.
“Sure everyone might think that Italy versus New Zealand being cancelled counts for nothing because we’d have lost anyway, but we deserved to be respected as a team. We had the chance to play in a big stadium, against a great team.
“The alternative is plan B. When you organise a World Cup you should have one in place.”
Should the Japan v Scotland match be cancelled, all three teams in Pool A contention will have reason to feel aggrieved also: Scotland for obvious reasons, Japan because it is not the way you’d want to go through, and Ireland because they miss the chance to top the pool (that being in Scotland’s gift, rather than Ireland’s hands, of course).
Quite frankly, World Cup should be handed a red card for bringing the game into disrepute. Players and fans alike (and no doubt the sponsors too) are rightly furious.
These matches should be rescheduled in alternative locations.
Last weekend’s rugby
For a rundown on the state of play as of 07/10, please see Deebee’s excellent synopsis.
On the telly this week … or not
Friday 11th October
| Australia 27 – 8 Georgia | 11:15 | ITV4 |
| Cheetahs 40 – 16 Munster | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Dragons 14 – 38 Connacht | 19:35 | Premier Sports 2 / TG4 / S4C |
| Leinster 40 – 14 Edinburgh | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Gloucester 24 – 26 Bath | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 12th October
| New Zealand v Italy | 05:45 | CANCELLED |
| England v France | 09:15 | CANCELLED |
| Ireland 47 – 5 Samoa | 11:45 | ITV |
| Kings 17 – 42 Ulster | 15:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Scarlets 54 – 10 Zebre | 15:00 | Freesports |
| Ospreys v Treviso | 19:35 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Glasgow v Cardiff | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
Sunday 13th October
| Namibia v Canada | 04:15 | ITV |
| USA v Tonga | 06:45 | ITV |
| Wales v Uruguay | 09:10 | ITV / S4C |
| Japan v Scotland | 11:45 | ITV |
RWC pool stage team review – non-cat version:
Japan – hometown heroes. Genuinely amazing to watch. Superbly coached
Ireland – faded. Has this team got one more monumental effort in them?
Scotland – faderer. Awful in opener, improved but tough ask today
Samoa – honking. Don’t see where they go from here
Russia – worst RWC team but gutsy as fuck. Respec’
NZ – okay. Still favourites but I don’t think they’re huge ones
Boks – almost okay. My tip to win it and I still think so
Italy – lame as usual. I don’t have much expectations for them I the next 4 years
Canada – poor old Canada. Couple of good players, Ardron is awesome but they look fucked
Namibia – improved LinkedIn profile. Probably went well enough to get Phil Davies another job
England – didn’t even have to try. Not sure how good they are. Top 4 team but could lose to anyone from here on in
France – very French and mostly bad. Shit scared of them as they have some awesome talent
Pumas – are they tier 2 again? Really don’t know what their style is or what they’re trying to do
Tonga – better than I expected. Good ticker and almost clowned France again
USA – worse than I expected. Should improve in 4 years time but they need rugby players not other sport rejects
Wales – pretty happy with that. Win next week and we go under par
Australia – aww don’t look. Bang average. I’m still not writing them off
Fiji – wide range. From utter shite to moments of genius
Georgia – solid. Still lack any explosiveness but a solid presence at this level
Uruguay – overachievers? Really impressive with their tiny resources. Best coached tier 2 team
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I used to like OMD until I found out they invented Atomic Kitten.
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Deebs – awesome.
I’m not saying that the boks aren’t favourites but Japan are playing very well right now.
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Mrs C’raig’s’s is undefeated and now has wine. M’r Cr’i’ags didn’t win anything and now has beer.
Been a great day. Mrs Craig’s was fantastic.
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In other news,
La Rochelle population: 75 000
Stadium capacity: 16 000
Sold out for the 50th consecutive time, since January 2016, regardless of the competition.
If only for the public support, at some point French rugby will have to wake up from its prolonged sleep.
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@Yosoy
“they need rugby players not other sport rejects”
Some of the best USA players have backgrounds in high school / college Gridiron:
Lasike
Taufeete’e
Landry (trials for Seattle Seahawks 2 years ago)
Samu Manoa (retired)
Campbell
nb. Those are just the ones with professional contracts in UK.
Mike Te’o, who scored 2 tries today, was a defensive end in high school.
With the exception of Eric Fry (wrestling) there are no other crossover athletes on the squad.
On the 7s side of things Perry Baker (former football pro) is considered rather good at rugby.
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“Don’t know what to do with myself now.”
Dig out your old Burt Bacharach / Dusty Springfield LPs?
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Not le weekend prochain, s’il te plait.
You can have 2023.
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I speculated about Hogg looking out of sorts / losing a yard of pace in earlier games. The scary acceleration seems to be missing, and he is looking older than his years.
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@’pro
They lack rugby ability, is the main point. They look like a bunch of guys who came to the game late.
There was a phase late in the game when they were a score down and they passed the ball along the line without drawing a man or straightening. I think they’re pretty well coached but they look unnatural doing it. Tonga looked a lesser team but they have players with good basics.
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Some of Wales’ basics today were shameful. I think we’ve reached the point where we have to pick better athletes to cope with a high level of rugby. We don’t have too many who are both.
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I love OMD. Andy learning me how to dance without embarrassment, and in Architecture and Morality one of the top synth pop albums ever.
I also like typing on iPads though, so I might not be the best judge.
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“late in the game”
This is the thing – they were absolutely exhausted,
They made 100 tackles in the first half, defending for long periods against abrasive Tongan runners just 4 days after playing three T1 nations in 14 days.
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Wainwright’s a good late to taking up rugby player.
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“Some of Wales’ basics today were shameful. ”
Hadleigh. NZer, mind, so no surprise he can’t pass backwards.
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Well, ‘pro, if you like, I can dig out moments early in the game where they show that they’re bad at rugby. Athletic enough to hang with teams, not good enough at rugby to trouble anyone.
They went winless. Tonga scared the shit out of France and the USA didn’t do that to one team in the pool. They’re still a way off.
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@tomp
He’s better than many who’ve been playing a long time. Amos was capped before Wainwright picked up a ball.
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“USA didn’t do that to one team in the pool”
France 12, USA 9 – 65 minutes on the clock.
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80 minutes. 80.
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Clinging to the short turnaround point is avoiding the bigger issue about capability. Tonga and Samoa are going through hard times and struggling to compete at this level, but it is a fair point that deserves accepting that their feel for the game is better in general than the American players.
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Meanwhile Wales were very poor today. One might hope, but if you stand back we don’t have enough quality players for each position. The collective team effort, coaching and fitness might keep nudging us forward, but it is an uphill task.
Every player in that front 5 apart from AWJ has to put in their best performance ever 3 times in a row, against players who 1-1 are probably better from here on in. We are not in Cardiff anymore, Dorothy.
Sad to say but today pulled the curtain back on the myth that Wales having developed strength in depth. Is it even better than the 2011 squad who were almost there, I wonder?
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One point I would like to make is that playing against superior opposition can make good rugby players look poor.
Hogg was weak today. Russell looked like he was obsessed with the crosskick and otherwise confused. He dropped a pass from his 9 under no pressure.
There was some undoubtedly poor play from US players at times. but they also demonstrate footballing ability at other moments.
Take the first try, for example – Cam Dolan, lurking out wide, gets outside the defender in the 13 channel, draws the winger and makes a perfect one handed offload to Te’o, who on his first touch of the ball, sidesteps the Tonga FB. I have seen a number of Tier one wingers fail to beat the last defender over recent weeks.
Today I’ve seen Scotland players wang the ball forwards at the hint of an overlap and trip themselves up after making a clean break.
There is a lot more to take into account than errors players make when outclassed or exhausted.
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No. Not even close. Namibia were the group chumps in 2011 and we played Gethin, AWJ, Warbs, Ryan Jones, Stephen Jones, Foxy, Byrne in that match. You can cope with Aled Brew and Bevington when half your team are test Lions.
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Is this the new points difference?
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” You can cope with Aled Brew and Bevington when half your team are test Lions.”
Just looked up that team. Halfpenny and Taulupe in as well. And, and, and Tavis Knoyle at scrum half. Shudder.
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Ireland in – among the worst T1 teams for metres made with ball in hand – shocker.
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Canada and Namibia are unfairly treated by that table having not got to play their easiest game. The reverse is true for some teams.
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NZ smoked Canada – 920 metres made.
Canada averaged more metres than the US.
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If you want a laugh I urge you to watch the Hallam Amos drop again.
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@tomp
Tavis at 9 is not fond memories. Final of his 11 caps aged 23 in the defeat to Japan, 2013.
The ultimate decent athlete/bad at rugby example.
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@LADOAB – I wonder what the highest figure is for a team that lost. Maybe Aus against Wales or perhaps Fiji against Uruguay.
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“Canada averaged more metres than the US”
If you could pick a CanAm XV how many Canadians get in?
Realistically only Ardron, DTH and Hassler would be involved.
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@’Pro – that’s a little misleading about Ireland. Their game plan mainly revolves around not having to make metres. They set up shop in the oppo’s half and grind them down. If the ball does go to there half? ROOST!
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@Pro – going on the metres made metric you would have to say it would depend on whether CanAm wanted to play an exciting open game or something more pragmatic…
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@refit
That’s the point I am making – the gameplan is all about doing the opposite of what other teams try and do.
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Seems to mostly work for them.
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Fbc – check out the title of this video:
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@CMW
Had the USA needed to qualify for the RWC via the repechage and been in the Canada group, we would have made more metres against Italy. I think we could have actually beaten Italy with an equal turnaround.
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CanAm XV
1. Ainu’u
2. Taufeete’e
3. Lamositele
4. Civetta
5. Olmstead
6. Dolan
7. Lamborn
8. Ardrom
9. De Haas
10. AJMG
11. DTHvdM
12. Lasike
13. Campbell
14. Hassler
15. Te’o
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@Pro – I’m afaraid that’s a subjective judgment. Such things were all very well, but now we have the metres made stats.
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@CMW
The logic you are using suggests a Italy/France XV would be superior to an Ireland / Wales XV
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Ireland try and play territory and possession together. The closer you are to the other team’s line, the harder it is to make metres. When we are playing our very best, we spend almost the whole game in the other team’s half. Looking at metres made is ridiculously stupid. Our lowest metres made was in the game against Samoa.
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@Pro – I have no doubt it would. To pick that XV though we need to dig deeper into the stats to find out which players have the highest average of metres made by the team for the time they were on the field.
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“Looking at metres made is ridiculously stupid.”
How can you say such a thing?
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I’m happy to go into high-end nerd detail about the different tactics of different teams in loser-level detail. No interest in arguing with bad actors about stupid stuff.
On a strategic level, Ireland are trying to be Pep’s Barcelona (a team I used to love watching but which was widely hated). Obviously we are not and never have been as dominant as them, but teams rarely are, in whatever spotr. The biggest weakness of our gameplan is that it aims for complete dominance and when one thing or other goes wrong it can leave the rest of the strategy looking exposed, because it is involves a large number of interdependencies. It’s very nice that we back ourselves quite so much. It’s a pity we’ve been so spluttering this year.
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Metres made is flawed by the fact that is the back three run back deep kicks they rack up dozens of metres doing nothing but running unchallenged with the ball.
Defenders beaten and line breaks made is a better indication of quality.
Ireland suck at them too, as they run at defenders from close range.
As Enzo says, Ireland are elite at dominating territory and possession.
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Oh, and I’m amazed I know more about this than our resident Yank, but:
Four of those guys (everyone except Taufeet’e) were rugby players as kidz. They may well have played ameriball as well, but they played rugby as sprogs.
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Here are the total running metre stats for the 2019 6 Nations. Want to guess who’s who?
1. 4,366 metres
2. 3, 790 metres
3. 3, 786 metres
4. 3, 541 metres
5. 3, 444 metres
6. 2, 699 metres
The figures seem much high to me but are from the official 6 Nations site.
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Ireland had twice as many clean breaks as Japan did in their pool match.
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