Rugby World Cup: Cancelled matches undermine an exhilarating tournament

Typhoon – or Super Typhoon – Hagibis has already disrupted the Rugby World Cup, but at the moment of writing, Sunday’s Pool A decider is still on, and the Scotland coach Gregor Townsend has announced his team.

Though Hagibis has not yet arrived, Saturday’s two matches – Italy v New Zealand and England v France have already been cancelled.  This means that, according to the tournament rules, both matches are judged to have been drawn and each team has been awarded 2 points.

England and France are apparently relaxed about this. Both have already qualified for the quarter-final. The same goes for New Zealand. The Italians are angry and distressed. They still had a mathematical chance of reaching the last Eight. No doubt it is highly unlikely that they would have beaten the All Blacks, but almost thirty years ago, February 1990, Buster Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson in, by what seems today delicious irony, Tokyo. Tyson was as fearsome and all-conquering as the All Blacks, and Douglas a 42-1 underdog. You never can tell. An All Black might have been given a red card early in the game and Italy might have won against fourteen men.

One of Italy’s great stalwarts, the hooker Leonardo Ghiraldini, is said to have been in tears when the match was cancelled. It would have been his last international. Their captain, Sergio Parisse, recognized as the greatest number 8 of the last decade in European rugby, was indignant as well as disappointed. He remarked that, if New Zealand had needed a win to qualify for the quarter-final, World Rugby would have found some way to bend its regulations to ensure that the match was played. Does anyone doubt this?

These regulations state that a match can be moved to a different stadium in a different city, but not to a different day. Changing the day disrupts the schedule –a little – but in all other respects would appear to be less disruptive, and easier to do, than changing to a different stadium in a  different city. But World Rugby’s tournament director, Alan Gilpin, says that postponement is “unfeasible on logistical and safety grounds.”

So there it is. The typhoon will have moved away by Sunday when the forecast is for a blue sky and sunshine, but, if  health and safety experts conclude on Sunday morning that Hagisid has done such damage that the match cannot be played that evening, then it will be declared a draw, each side getting two points. Japan will go through to the quarter-final and Scotland will be out, on the next plane home.

I’ve no doubt that Japan would like the match to go ahead. Victory and qualification by right would be the greatest achievement in their rugby history. Equally I’ve no doubt that a cancellation which ensures that Japan would meet South Africa in the quarter-final would be – let’s put it mildly – not unwelcome to World Rugby. It would be a wonderful occasion and one which would breathe fresh life into the game. If on the other hand the match was played and Scotland won by a margin sufficient to relegate Japan to third place in the Pool, well, a Scottish appearance in the quarter-final would have little of the same interest (except to Scots) and none of the same influence on the development of the game world-wide.

Nevertheless it would be better if Japan won their place in the quarter-final on the field, rather than being awarded it in the committee room.
Set aside for the moment the indignation felt in the Italian and Scottish camps, and even Parisse’s scarcely challengeable judgment that if New Zealand had needed to win their last Pool match, some way would have been found to re-arrange the  fixture, World Rugby’s lack of foresight and preparation and its intransigence are astonishing, ridiculous and unfair.

Tom English, the BBC’s Scottish rugby correspondent put it like this on Friday:

“Ten years in the planning and all that World Rugby has come up with in the hardly revelatory occurrence of a typhoon in the typhoon season is match abandonment. Two already, but if that becomes three on Sunday, then the entire integrity of the World Cup as a tournament and  World Rugby as an organization will be trashed.”

Mr English, I should add, is an Irishman, not a moaning and resentful Scot.

There have been fine matches already and there will be more and better ones to come. The crowds have been splendid and their enthusiasm infectious.  Despite the usual refereeing controversies, some arising from World Rugby’s laudable determination to clamp down on dangerous high tackles, the tournament was well on the way to being judged one of the best of Rugby’s World Cups, even though there have still been too many very one-sided matches and though the scheduling of games has, as always favoured the strong countries and handicapped the weaker ones. When, for example, Russia played Scotland last Wednesday, this was their fourth match in nineteen days, not a schedule likely ever to be demanded of, say New Zealand or England, though both have much greater reserve strength than Russia.

Now things look different. First, the wisdom of staging the Cup in Japan during a season when typhoons are not unusual must be questioned, all the more so because climate scientists have been telling us for years  that  extreme weather is not only becoming more frequent, but also more extreme. Consequently, the failure to have contingency plans that would be as fair to all teams as possible is all the more reprehensible. It smacks of complacency and there are times when complacency must be judged evidence of incompetence.

At the moment Sunday’s match between Japan and Scotland is still due to go ahead, conditions permitting. But it seems that if it is judged unsafe to do so, it cannot be postponed for a mere twenty-four hours and played on  Monday. Moreover, by already cancelling Italy’s match with New Zealand, World Rugby has given itself a get-out clause. They can argue that it would be grossly unfair to Italy to grant Scotland the chance of qualification that has been denied to the Italians. The point is that Italy and Scotland are the only sufferers from cancellation. New Zealand, England and France are already through to the quarter-finals, while the two points that Japan will be granted if Sunday’s match is cancelled will see them through.

Naturally I hope the match can go ahead, not only because I want to see Scotland in the quarter-final and feel for the players and coaches who have worked so hard and so long if their World Cup should be ended by administrative fiat, but also because I have been expecting a cracking game between two teams seeking to play  fast adventurous  rugby. It’s probably a 50-50 call.

If it’s played and Scotland win, splendid. If Japan win, also splendid. If it is cancelled  because of the pig-headed inflexibility of officialdom, it will be remembered as a blot on an otherwise often exhilarating tournament.

Alas.