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Today's solitary Rugby World Cup match



Questions

Habitual User
Oct 18, 2006
24,652
Worthing
I get the chance to watch some early rugby today and find out there is only one game and that's at 8 this evening. Very stop start this tournament. It started with England and the opening game and then a good weekend programme and then two blank days even though there were teams waiting to get off the mark. Maybe I'm missing something but the format and scheduling seems odd. So a massacre today is all we get.
 

Eeyore

Lord Donkey of Queen's Park
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Apr 5, 2014
23,291
I'm surprised by the short turn around period for some teams. Traditionally the lesser nations. Japan played yesterday with only four days breather. That's fine in football, but after a fully blown Rugby match some players won't be able to stand up for three days. The absolute minimum in the Premiership is five.
 
Still can't quite understand how the Japs had to play again yesterday, 4 days after playing the Saffers, against a team that hadn't yet played.

Bizarre scheduling.
 

Pavilionaire

Well-known member
Jul 7, 2003
30,499
Japan have showed that with time to prepare the smaller teams can pose a real threat but give them 2 matches in 5 days and they'll struggle. This is the problem of having a rugby world cup - the balance between quality, recovery time and the demands of the TV audience.

I fancy that because global rugby standards are rising even the best teams are going to be battered and bruised come the semis and final.
 

Questions

Habitual User
Oct 18, 2006
24,652
Worthing
I'm surprised by the short turn around period for some teams. Traditionally the lesser nations. Japan played yesterday with only four days breather. That's fine in football, but after a fully blown Rugby match some players won't be able to stand up for three days. The absolute minimum in the Premiership is five.

And it showed up dramatically in that second half yesterday when the Japanese tired allowing that score to flatter Scotland. Fiji have also played 2 before Namibia have played one. I'm all for including the lesser nations to promote the game but there seems imbalances everywhere.
 


stss30

Registered User
Apr 24, 2008
9,545
The schedule seems bizarre at best... I understand the need for rest days but Fiji and Japan got royally shafted... Why couldn't they have played Friday when there's only one game on?

Plus the lack of continuity must hurt viewing figures... FIFA do a lot of things horrendously badly but when the football world cup was on after a couple of days you knew what time the match(es) would be played...
 

bhafc99

Well-known member
Oct 14, 2003
7,032
Dubai
Quick turnarounds aren't great, but the fact that some teams have played twice before others have even played at all is very wrong.
 

Eeyore

Lord Donkey of Queen's Park
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Apr 5, 2014
23,291
The fact that England have seven days rest between their key matches says it all. They would create merry hell if it was less than six.
 


Wozza

Shite Supporter
Jul 6, 2003
23,532
Online
Assume it's fixed so biggest teams/matches are at weekends?

They could have arranged it so that groups are played on different days (A on Sat, B on Sun etc), with the same gap for everyone. Although I guess that would make the tournament even longer.
 

hans kraay fan club

The voice of reason.
Helpful Moderator
Mar 16, 2005
60,981
Chandlers Ford
Assume it's fixed so biggest teams/matches are at weekends?

They could have arranged it so that groups are played on different days (A on Sat, B on Sun etc), with the same gap for everyone. Although I guess that would make the tournament even longer.

Nope - the single biggest problem is having an uneven number of teams in each group - making it impossible to spread everone's games evenly.
 

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