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 |
I’ve already stated my feelings about avatar many times.
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That’s Hudson. Hicks is the one that gets sprayed inna chest by acid when they’re trying to evacuate.
Scotland are Gorman. Miles out of their depth and hopelessly outclassed, prone to choking under pressure and ultimately doomed to an act of self-immolation in the ducts.
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Carter Burke is def the fistee.
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All Blacks are the aliens.
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Scotland is the girl that they find. Has a rough ride. Sees some hope and escapes. Killed arbitrarily in cryosleep.
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Dammit. Always get my Hicks and Hudson mixed up.
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@cat
How rude.
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For Craigs-
In Bloodborne terms,
Typhoon wotsit is the Old Ones, particularly the Moon Presence,
WR is the Healing Church
Italy are clearly the Giant Pig
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@Chimpie. I was well pleased with that.
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arse. Kurtley broken.
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Cat – Australia are Gehrman. Clearly deviance personified.
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Beale not looking good, heavy collision with the Georgian 13
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@Craigs
And crippled and sort of useless, with their best days obviously behind them.
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England are Eddie Jones,
in real life
So there
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And to think chimpie accused me of being rude.
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Agree with Ticht. Fuck everyone.
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Cat – being pushed around by animate sex dolls too.
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3 March 2009, the Sri Lankan team bus is attacked in Lahore, Pakistan. Later that week, the Indian government refuses to give security guarantees for the 2nd season of IPL, starting in April.
24th March 2009, it is announced that South Africa will host the 2009 IPL tournament, featuring all 8 teams, playing 59 matches over 5 weeks from 18 April to 24 May.
The tournament is played without a hitch despite only 3 weeks preparation – 8 teams, support staff, dancers, DJ’s, ticket printing, food, logistics, hotels, television coverage, and fuck knows what else? In a country with a fraction of the resources and infrastructure of Japan.
……………………………………………
2nd October 2019 the Joint Typhoon Warning Center first began monitoring a disturbance around the Mariana Islands in the Pacific and 24 hours later (3 October) upgraded it to a possible tropical cyclone. On the 5th of October 2019, it is officially given a name, Hagibis and it continues to intensify and move towards Japan.
By the 7th of October 2019, it has intensified to a Cat 5 typhoon and passed over the Mariana Islands on it’s way to Japan. It weakens slightly, but on the 8th of October 2019, it strengthens again, to Cat 5.
On the 10th of October it had become apparent that Tokyo was in the path.
……………………………………………………..
2009 – Japan begins bidding for a World Cup to held in typhoon season.
2015 World Rugby awards Japan a World Cup to be held in typhoon season.
2019 – World Rugby declares contingency plans aplenty for the tournament.
2nd of October 2019 – World Rugby ignores the warnings and carries on until a full-scale typhoon is declared almost a week later.
9th of October 2019 – World Rugby puts hands behind back and crosses fingers in an effort to nix the typhoon.
10th of October 2019, World Rugby proudly unveils it’s extensive plans to ensure that the tournament goes off without a hitch – CANCELLED! (Now feck off and leave us alone).
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Who woukd have though Australia would, one day, out scrummage Georgia
Georgia defending stoutly, but this is energy sapping stuff
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ooh, second movement from White.
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Awesome defence by Georgia. Joe Worsley is their defence coacoach, apparently.
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ooh, second movement from White.
Talking chess now that the Rugby has been cancelled until 2023?
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Georgia 3-Aus 7. Aus 8 ten in the bin.
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Cheating Aussie yellow carded for a swinging arm! Didn’t Robert Muldoon once ponder on the Australian choice of yellow for their sporting attire?
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Moral first half victory to Georgia.
Aus 10-3 up at the break.
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Followed thru with the head too, Deebs. Looked intentional to me.
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I must say from the first angle, it looked like his arm had simply slipped up the back of the other Aussie player, but the reverse angle showed a different story. Very lucky to just get yellow.
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I thought it should be two yellows, possibly a red and a yellow
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Cheika’s shot himself in the foot a bit by talking so much about the refereeing. There’s a perception that Australia haven’t been coached to tackle within the rules that’s hard to shake.
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Georgia are gret without the ball, but utterly awful with it
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Lovely try. Great to see a prop on the charge like that!
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I am going to be so angry if we don’t comfortably put this Aussie team away in the QF
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Outside of some Korobeti/Kerevi moment of genius there really isn’t much we should be scared of and yet I still have the FEAR building already
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@FBC
Like many Tier 2 teams (especially in Eastern Europe) they have very limited speed and elusive running in the backline.
Going wider invariably leads to struggling to retain possession behind the gainline,
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Aussie lineout has looked good and Pocock and Hooper are always a threat at the breakdown. Plus they have some real gain line breakers who could cause some headaches. So you can’t count them out, but I agree, it would be a real sickener to get knocked out by them – especially after however many victories against them on the bounce.
Yuck. The FEAR is already kicking in.
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@Pro the try just now apart, they’ve been particularly bad today, they were much better with the ball v Wales
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Assuming Wales dont lose vs Uruguay, Aus-Eng is going to see a titanic scrum battle
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DAB, FFB – don’t sweat, lose the FEAR, just order your friendly neighboourhood typhoon here:
https://blogs.nasa.gov/hurricanes/
PS – if you could pass this on to DBWR, maybe it’s not too late to save the tournament?
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Need a new washing machine. Been looking
I may be getting old but what the flip is the purpose of a washing machine with wifi that you can control with an app. It’s not like it can load and empty itself, is it?
What is the point in having literally every home device connected to the internet. All it does is add pointless complexity and a nice hacking opportunity.
Bah humbug to this modern rubbish.
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In heartwarming news for Ulster fans, Ruan Pienaar is on standby in case Herschelle Jantjies doesn’t recover from a hamstring twinge he picked up against Canada. Pienaar has been in fine form in both Currie Cup and now Pro14, and his style is definitely CUP style. Hope for Jantjies though that he’s fit and firing. On current form, I think he’s still back-up – but to Cobus Reinach, not Faf, who has looked indifferent and made Handre Pollard’s job tricky too.
Cheslin Kolbe is 80% to 90% sure to start according to Rassie, whilst Francois Louw also has a niggle. These long injury lists are to be expected when DBWR shafts you with four matches before some have played their 3rd.* And then making sure you’re underdone for the knockouts.
* Not sure about this, but makes for a compelling argument if no-one bothers to check.
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@Chimpie – it’s the ‘Internet of Things’. Got to get digital, do things digitally for the sake of doing digital things even if you don’t need to do them at all. Otherwise we’ll be left behind and you’ll all be out of a job. Oh.
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@chimpie
we just bought a new washing machine. 8kg capacity for less than two hundred quid. No IOT or wifi bollox.
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@Deebee – “Not sure about this, but makes for a compelling argument if no-one bothers to check.”
Just as well we left that TomP character behind when the old place closed down…
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Internet of pish more like.
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Gonna hack chimpie’s washing. Gonna make it waash his clothes with half cooked cheese on toast. Gonna be great.
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It’s ridiculous. Doing extension at the moment and pretty much everything electrical comes with an internet connection option. I do not want heating, oven, fridge, washing machine, frigging kettle and other arsing appliances connected. I can just about handle TV and computers etc. but that’s where I draw my line dammit.
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I would think our washing machine has done a washload a day for the last ten years, to a great extent because of Mrs CMW’s reusable nappy obsession. She still hasn’t let me do the great nappy burning even though the little one has been out of them for well over a year. Had to get someone out to change a part the other day for £60. He reckoned we’d get another couple of years out of it. Bosch.
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@chimpie
it’s not compulsory to buy the internet connection option.
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@OT
I know. But for some things there are actually fewer options without ‘connectivity’. Madness.
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