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 |
@TomP
‘Robust’ is one of those management-speak words that can mean whatever you want them to mean.
The aggressive attitude of the SRU was certainly counter productive and poorly timed.
Saying stuff like this is pretty daft:
“I think most people feel that if it was one of the economic powerhouses of the game like, as you say, New Zealand, perhaps more thought would have been given to a flexible approach.”
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Tomp – 128? Why time was it in the oossa? Or was something else happening?
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Interesting, TomP. Where has it been reported that Italy NZ were offered a postponement? That is exactly the type of thing that will re-elevate NZ to arch villains. Also exactly the type of thing which will keep the shitstorm rolling, and why Craigs should have been put in charge of WR PR, and brushed the whole affair under the carpet.
Doh.
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Ticht,
Dodson as representative of the SRU. Maybe combative is better than aggressive.
Here are a couple of lines from Dodson’s Radio 4 Today interview:
“My view is that we’re not going to let Scotland be the collateral damage for a decision that was taken in haste.
“I think there’s alternative (venues) around Japan. The point to me, we are talking about now is not whether the game will take place on Sunday, that will be a purely meteorological issue. The issue will be if it can’t take place then we’re really, really pressing the point that we need to have to get this game delayed 24 hours later.”
“We’ve had consistent dialogue since the last three or four days around this with senior people at World Rugby, but World Rugby seem to be determined to stick to its plan that the match is either played on Sunday or indeed it is cancelled, and to have it cancelled and have our ability to progress from this group put at peril, we believe is absolutely unacceptable.
“We don’t know that (it’s too late) – we have to challenge it.”
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Sbt – no, no, no, no, no. Please don’t put me in charge of anything!*
* unless it’s Sag drugs supply.
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@TomP
The games were shown on a subscription only channel that cost $200
the record audience in eg. Scotland for a free-to-air RWC game is 3.3 million (v Australia 2015)
So even if your figures are correct*, rugby in the US, on a subscription only channel, with games being showed between 2am and 7am, are still almost half of the record in a T1 country.
*I can’t find them.
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I hope Sag is well. On a beach somewhere. Surrounded by booze and bikinis. Or something to that effect.
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TomP, here is the full quote from the R4 interview
Asked if the game being cancelled would be the end of the matter, he replied:
“At this stage it is too early to say. My point is that World Rugby will be listening to what is happening around the world – I think opinion on social media is rising all the time about the injustice of this. I feel for our Italian friends as well, they had no participation in any of the decisions and they are on their way home already, and my view is that we’re not going to let Scotland be the collateral damage for a decision that was taken in haste.”
If what you posted previously is correct, the decision to cancel the Italy ABs game was because NZ said no, as a result of that game being cancelled the narrative became that “one rule for all, end off” thing
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‘injustice’ and ‘collateral damage’ is pretty aggressive, especially considering the game hadn’t actually been cancelled.
The ‘opinion on social media’ part was a thinly veiled attempt to put pressure on WR and encourage people to vent spleen on social media. As some of you guys actually did. On WRs page.
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So, let’s see:
Scotland’s population is 5.425 million, and 3.3 million watched a RWC match. That’s 60% of the population.
US population is 327.2 million, and 1.94 million watched the best-watched match. That’s 0.59% of the population.
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Just so you know, and to remove any doubt, Pro, I’m not engaging with you because I feel you are what Larry correctly identified as a bad actor, your motivation is always to sow discord, it can be seen today in how, with all the other countries to choose from you choose Scotland for your examples.
I feel you are trying to provoke a response, well this is the best you’ll get. I feel you have no real motivation for “growing the game” as you are always talking about USA or Japan replacing eg Scotland in T1, rather than expanding, that is spiteful and that actions of a spoilt teenager.
One last word, if you expect me to engage with you’ll have to earn it by behaving better.
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Tim,
Reported (tweeted) by Brian Moore and
“Former English player and Telegraph columnist Brian Moore fuelled the fire after claiming on Twitter the All Blacks insisted on sticking to the usual schedule.
““I’m told New Zealand, and this comes from the people I spoke to, not me, insisted on sticking rigidly to the rules because they didn’t want a shorter turnaround before the 1/4 finals. They are perfectly entitled to take this view,” said Moore.
But the NZ Herald reported that WR had rejected this suggestion:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12275656
“But in a brief statement issued to the Herald today, a World Rugby spokesperson rejected these reports.”
“Categorically untrue,” the World Rugby spokesperson said. “Monday was not on the cards. We have to treat all teams/matches fairly, not the few, and that was central to our contingency plans process relating to a dynamic and complex adverse weather situation.
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Just to be clear those numbers i made up about viewing figures in the USA are made up. Wanted to show a downward trend because it suited the joke.
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Worst.comparison.ever.
Number of tigers in Bangladesh: 114
Number of tigers in Scotland (a tier one tiger nation): 0
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Damn you TomP, there goes my statistical annihilation. Although I did suspect the fourth number was made up.
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@Ticht
It’s quite something where suggesting that ‘there might be something in it’ when the sports governing body announces ‘bringing the game into disrepute charges’ against a national union is seen as trolling.
Should we just have a rule that the SRU, the Scotland team and players should be exempt from any criticism on these pages?
Just to clarify things – in the last hour one contributor has suggested that WR should forget about the country whose team I support and another has made a series of unfunny jibes at other sports and cultural aspects of that country.
Do you not sometimes feel you can be a little oversensitive?
@Thauma
The overall size of the US population means you only have to increase interest in watching rugby by a couple of % and it’s a larger audience than some more established nations.
This is why WR is so interested in cracking the North American market.
Plus, they seem to model themselves on the NFL.
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Ticht, the full interview is here https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000950l at 1 hour 31 minutes here. It’s worth listening to.
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Fucksake tomp. Making me look as stupid as I am. In front of these fine people as well.
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..and there’s the victim card, just as expected.
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Number of Mr Craig’s in kent: 1.
Number of Mr Craig’s in the rest of the world: 0.
Kent is the best place ever
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Expro, you seem to be getting confused between the USA and North America. There are 23 countries in North America.
And I’m very serious about not wanting the US market ‘cracked’, as they would certainly try to dominate the sport. Can we not have one thing in this world that isn’t dominated by the US?
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@Ticht
But I haven’t actually played the victim card?
Thaum’s unfunny jibes about the US don’t bother (or interest) me in the slightest. I am not an American,
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Not only are you not an American, but you appear to know very little about them.
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“There are 23 countries in North America”
Yes, but WR is only really interested in 1 of them.
“And I’m very serious about not wanting the US market ‘cracked’, as they would certainly try to dominate the sport”
Short of a dictatorship abolishing all other sports and making all young males take up rugby the US will never ‘dominate’ rugby. It will never ever compete with NFL, NHL, MLB and NBA.
Just establishing a decent national ‘professional’ competition and having a national team that can perhaps make the occasional QF at a RWC or turnover a T1 nation once in a while would be a massive thing.
I certainly don’t think WR has any aspirations beyond this. No one wants rugby to turn into the Olympics, where success is decided by population + money spent.
There is some really exciting potential talent for rugby in the States. I’d like to see some of those guys given the opportunity to show what they can bring to the game. Because I love rugby. and I think it can be a great thing for some people in the US.
As someone who has long supported the Eagles, you learn to accept a lot of ridicule about ‘yanks’ being better suited to ‘padded rugby’ and supporters not having the attention span to appreciate rugby. I’d like to see such lazy stereotyping proven wrong at some stage.
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@Thaum
well, it wasn’t me who had to delete my silly comments about Japanese attitudes to foreigners last week.
You’d have been modded for that at the Guardian.
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Such a dick.
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There is this thing about feeding and Trolls
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Yep, Ticht, you’re right.
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Hmm, I’ve just discovered a pre-moderation setting I could apply….
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“‘Robust’ is one of those management-speak words that can mean whatever you want them to mean.”
Absolutely right, ‘pro.
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And incidentally, I’ve also discovered 8 posts that were spam-binned, which I have released into the wild.
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My friend brought a bottle of Cardhu Gold Reserve single malt whisky. Not sure if this is good or bad but there’s some left…
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Can I have some?
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BB – unfortunately I’ve already poured it.
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I like it.
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Craigs – I advise you to try Bushmills 1608 anniversary edition, if you can find any. It’s delicious. Unfortunately they aren’t making any more.
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Thaum – don’t think I’ve ever had Bushmills. I’ll have to rectify that.
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There are a wide variety of Bushmillses; Black Bush is pretty good for a reasonably-priced tipple.
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Here’s the gen on the 1608: https://www.whiskyauctioneer.com/lot/69749/bushmills-1608-400th-anniversary
I have two bottles stashed. :-) One I will drink, the other I will keep.
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Dave Broom is a whisky reviewer who I like, there is also a guy on youtube called Ralphy, but here is Broom on Bushmills
https://scotchwhisky.com/whisky-reviews/new-whiskies/19725/batch-154/
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Come day, go day
Wishing me heart it was Sunday
Drinking buttermilk all the week
Whiskey on a Sunday
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Ticht – boys-oh-boys, but that is a serious whiskey site!
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“Ticht – boys-oh-boys, but that is a serious whiskey site!”
sgreat, innit?
There are a couple of real whisky nerds at the monthly tastings I go to, they do soooo much research and blogging on the subject.
Imagine spending your day writing on a niche subject with people you don’t really know?
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@Craigs – Heard that on the Blood & Mud podcast. Cringe isn’t the word.
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Thaum – sent you an email
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Refit – I don’t know why Ben didn’t already get chosen…
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hehehe. Missed all the fun again, good job. You still getting reeled in, Ticht.
Just fallen in love with live music again, 50 odd people in a tiny Independent venue, run by musos for music enthusiasts. Very lovely.
http://www.theboileroom.net/
Posted a couple of links to the musicians playing earlier, and I have to say they were both WAY better stripped down, acoustic and live. Awesome evening.
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“You still getting reeled in, Ticht.”
Not at all, mate I was well aware of what has been going on for years, I just finally had had enough. The Irish posters and others mainly just left, which is a shame.
All forums have a shelf life and a natural turnover but some are wilfully damaged, and this one has been.
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