THE decision by the organisers of the Rugby World Cup to cancel two matches – England v France and New Zealand v Italy, both scheduled for tomorrow – is at best inept and at worst deeply disingenuous.
If they cancel a third – the Scotland-Japan match due to take place on Sunday – they will inflict further damage on the credibility of a tournament which already appears certain to be remembered for all the wrong reasons.
Of course safety has to be the foremost consideration of those organisers, and as Typhoon Hagibis is powerful enough to inflict severe damage on the areas where the two abandoned matches were due to be played, it is understandable they are not going ahead as planned. But the decision not to stage the games in Yokohama and Toyota City as scheduled is one thing; the decision not to hold them at all is quite another.
It is now a decade since World Rugby awarded this tournament to Japan. Between then and now, multiple contingency plans could have been put in place for dealing with the extreme weather which, as has been known for millennia, periodically plagues the country.
There are two basic variations which could be brought into play. One is to move games elsewhere if bad weather makes them unplayable in their original location. The other is to postpone them for a day, two days, three days – more or less however long it takes.
If the tournament organisers truly were unable to employ either variation, they are guilty of ineptitude. But that is hard to believe, which leads to the suspicion they are being disingenuous: that, far from merely being about safety, they have made their decisions because of worry about the implications, commercial and otherwise, of failing to stage the final on time.
But what is the point of holding the final on the appointed day if you can only do that by destroying the credibility of the competition? Whatever happens in that final now, the outcome will surely be tainted by the fact the process to get to that final was not properly carried out.
In all probability, the All Blacks would have beaten Italy and qualified for the quarter-finals as winners of Pool B – a result that would have knocked the Italians out of the tournament. In all probability. But we don’t decide matches on probability, we actually play the games and see what happens.
As for England and France, at least both of them are through to fight another day. But the French might have ended up topping Pool C had the game gone ahead, which would have meant a different opponent in the last eight.
England coach Eddie Jones has said Scotland only had themselves to blame for their potential elimination from the tournament if the Japan game is called off, and New Zealand coach Steve Hansen backed him up.
“You have to accumulate points in your games to put yourself in the right position in case that happened,” Jones said.
What, so everyone should win their pool with a game to spare, or at least qualify with a match in hand? In which case, why bother scheduling four pool matches per team in the first place? It’s a ludicrous argument which, like the cancellations, only serves to compromise the integrity of the competition.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel