Japan V Scotland (if it's on)

MATCH 40
SUNDAY 13 OCTOBER
KICK OFF (UK TIME)
11:45

SCOTLAND
WORLD RANKING 9TH

Referee: Ben O'Keeffe
International Stadium Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Yokohama City

(Or not at all)

Is this Schrodinger's game in that it can be considered both on and cancelled at the same time? I'm sure Jimbo will correct me in my interpretation....

Probably covered on one of the other threads, but a decision on this game will be made on Sunday, so that'll be a treat to wake up to.

I'm going to be in Singapore for this one - got grand plans of finding a pub to watch the game in Clarke Quay.

At least I'll be in the right time zone to find out immediately if the game is still on and avoid the nasty wake up present!

There's been no real mention of moving or delaying the game, and I guess if a call is being made on the day of the game, there is no chance of it changing venues. I can't see it being delayed either as it'll totally mess with players prep schedules, as well as all the other additional external requirements that go around matchday (policing, food vendors etc).

On that basis I guess the decision is play or cancel.

The tournament rules are pretty clear that pool games won't be rescheduled. The expectation is that the typhoon will have blown itself out or passed by Sunday, but the plan is to make a late call (midnight) on whether to go ahead with the match.

Given the lateness of the decision, I doubt there's an option to relocate. It might just about be possible to delay, but there's been no hint that that's an option.

It would be gutting to go out this way, as we seem to be getting a bit of form and we had a good chance of beating Japan (although would be tough)

Would be 2 world cups in a row that we would have been shafted -

is it not enough that we have our own pantness, that we doing have the fate against us too :-(

As you say, the pre tournament rules were clear, moving it or rescheduling would go against that, so cancelling the game (if not playable) is the far more likely option.

From my understanding, it's not necessarily the weather that will be an issue for our game, but the potential destruction caused.  If the typhoon has hit the area hard, then it might be deemed to be unsafe for people to be out and about.

Whilst it would be Poopie for our game to be cancelled, the priority has to be the safety of the people in the path of this.

They won't postpone or relocate as they have already set the precedent with the Italy v NZ game.

Italy did have a mathematical chance of qualifying if they trashed NZ. Having made that call and put them out of the tournament, they can't but do anything else for Scotland if our game can't be played.

To go out like that would be beyond gutting. You wonder how it is going to effect the players and the preparation as well, not knowing if the game will be played or not.

No reason to cancel it - Japan are used to the weather (I mean it is in Japan). And let's face it Scotland play in much worse regularly.

I'd be particularly gutted for the likes of Reid, Laidlaw and Barclay who this is likely their last Scotland game. Not to mention the other older players for which this is the last world cup.

They'll be denied the chance to go out on a high. Even if they lost they would still want to have had the chance.

The story on the BBC about it is largely pointless, however the key bit for me is the embedded tweet from Paul Grayson which shows the sheer size and potential destruction this typhoon could cause.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/49995604

Judging by the level of excitement from weather boffs twitter feeds, Hurricane Haggis appears to be a total monster.

I can't help but feel that World Rugby have backed themselves into a corner with the rules they have imposed. Surely the most important thing is getting the game played, even if that's behind closed doors? Given they have set a precedent by cancelling the NZ v Italy game and they aren't making a decision until Sunday morning, our fate is essentially in the hands of the weather gods.

Given the size of the storm and the likely resultant damage, I'm struggling to see how our game will go ahead.

Well, we'd hardly be the first Scots in history whose lives have been fecked over by ridiculously bad weather.

I suppose this is the ultimate karma for when we made the Samoans play at Pittodrie. Our players ran out with tin foil under their jackets to stay warm during the anthems. No one had the decency to tell the Samoans even to wear jumpers.

Posted on the main delayed games thread, but here for you guys too

BamBam wrote:This is potentially interesting - https://twitter.com/lequipe/status/1182014713670049792

L'Equipe wrote:The match between Japan and Scotland was threatened with cancellation due to typhoon Hagibis. But its importance to appoint the qualifiers of Pool A would push the organizers to postpone the game exceptionally to Monday http://ow.ly/pXOj30pH4vw

Hmm interesting. The organisers have been pretty specific that this is not being considered but you never know.

Don't fancy playing NZ after a 5 day turnaround, having played Japan after a 5 day turnaround, but that's the least of our worries just now!

cant believe they cant find a stadium in 2000 km

It is hard to see how they could do that, having effectively binned the Italians, even though no-one, themselves included gave them an earthly against NZ.

You can't see Japan being happy to go through like that though, so maybe they are under a bit of pressure from the hosts as well.

If they are thinking that, then why not just plan for it now, at least it might give some fans the chance to get to the match.

why are they not moving the games to Fukuoka?

nowhere near the storm

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/oct/10/italy-sergio-parisse-all-blacks-rugby-world-cup-cancellation

I wonder if the Italian call off was mainly due to time - they've got another day to sort Scotland out.

Obviously begs the question of why they left this so late! Appreciating that the path of the typhoon kept changing.

Townsend has his say - he fully expects World Rugby to make the game go ahead, even if it means moving to another stadium

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/49996977

It sounds like the organizers aren't willing to move or reschedule... it would be a shambles if this doesn't go ahead.

rodders wrote:It sounds like the organizers aren't willing to move or reschedule...  it would be a shambles if this doesn't go ahead.

It would be a disgrace if Scotland got knocked out because of a cancelled game.

Ireland technically could also get knocked out if it gets cancelled which would also grate a lot although if you lose to Japan and Samoa you probably dont deserve to qualify. However, Ireland being relegated to second over a cancelled game would not be right either when the possibility for Japan to lose is still there.

The forecast for the following day is really good in Tokyo so should be ok for Scotland v Japan.

George Carlin wrote:Well, we'd hardly be the first Scots in history whose lives have been fecked over by ridiculously bad weather.

Yeah, I remember that time when yis tried to invade Greece in 473 BC. I think Michael Fish promise some small April showers for that day.

RDW wrote:Townsend has his say - he fully expects World Rugby to make the game go ahead, even if it means moving to another stadium

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/49996977

unf that wont matter cause the precedent has already been set with italy already eliminated

alive555 wrote:

RDW wrote:Townsend has his say - he fully expects World Rugby to make the game go ahead, even if it means moving to another stadium

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/49996977

unf that wont matter cause the precedent has already been set with italy already eliminated

Which is a catastrophic error from world rugby. The game was due to be played in Toyota on Saturday, the forecast for the following day is for sunshine, mild breezes and low humidity. Perfect for rugby and no games scheduled for that stadium for that day. Embarrassing from world rugby. This stadium also has a retractable roof.

The England v France game was due to be played in Yokahama on Saturday. Japan are due to play Scotland the next day in Yokahama at 7:45pm in the evening. I dont see why the England game couldnt be scheduled for a midday kickoff (over at 2pm), Bobs your uncle, Fannys your auntie. Or send the game to the indoor stadium in Kobe for God sake. It not hard. Vissel Kobe football team do not have a game in that stadium until the following week.

I suspect it's a lot harder than you seem to think.

Not really fair on england or france then as they lose a days recovery.

I suspect if you have properly contingency plans it is not.

As part of my job I write contingency plans for services outsourced to regions that are prone to natural disasters. As part of the plans I test the contingencies which means creating natural disaster scenarios and implementing your plan at the drop of a hat to test how well they work. World Rugby it seems didn't have contingency plans so thats a failure on their part but even without them they still should attempt to deliver their product as expected. I get the sense that they havent exhausted all means and it boils down to cost rather than potential to reschedule which is frankly pathetic.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Not really fair on england or france then as they lose a days recovery.

Lol. Losing one days recovery is 10 times fairer than having a week extra recovery.

If you reschedule to Sunday the get the same recovery time as teams scheduled to play on Sunday. Illogical comment.

Ha. Not really. We.all knew this may be the case. Wouldn't be fair on the teams or the fans etc to change it and disadvantage england or france like that.

I would love to see your reaction if England needed the win to progress, it would be the complete opposite as such I cant take your comments seriously at all.

It is much fairer on fans to reschedule the game than cancel it. Dont think you are thinking your comments through at all.

I'd be gutted we didn't do enough from our other games. Tbf I feel nothing for italy they were going out anyway. Scotland I'd feel worse for particularly as my best mate is Scottish. They might not be affected though.

Listen, when I were a lad we were supposed to play a game against our bitter rivals but thier pitch was waterlogged.

Being the good bunch that we are, we jsut said they could come play on our turf insteadof cancelling the whole thing.

So aye, tell japan that Murrayfield is available!

Yeah but no one's saying the game with qualification on the line doesn't matter. England and France were already through, the order makes relatively little difference

Italy are unfortunate, but everyone and their dog knows they would have got battered anyway

BamBam wrote:Yeah but no one's saying the game with qualification on the line doesn't matter. England and France were already through, the order makes relatively little difference

Italy are unfortunate, but everyone and their dog knows they would have got battered anyway

Fixture goes ahead and there is every chance someone like Billy V or Manu picks up an injury. Calling it off allows England to go into the quarters with a clean bill of health. England dodged a big bullet here.

So you're annoyed that England haven't picked up injuries before the knockouts? Seems a bit of an odd stance to be honest

lets face it had England been playing Japan for a place in the QFs on Sunday, World Rugby would already have announced the change of venue

BamBam wrote:So you're annoyed that England haven't picked up injuries before the knockouts? Seems a bit of an odd stance to be honest

Not as odd as your obvious re-framing of my comment to side step the fact that playing less attritional games is an obvious advantage and instead frame at as a desire on my part to see people get injured. Your comment barely deserves a response.

alive555 wrote:lest face it had England been playing Japan for a place in the QFs on Sunday, World Rugby would already have announced the change of venue  

Absolutely right.

Collapse2005 wrote:I suspect if you have properly contingency plans it is not.

As part of my job I write contingency plans for services outsourced to regions that are prone to natural disasters. As part of the plans I test the contingencies which means creating natural disaster scenarios and implementing your plan at the drop of a hat to test how well they work. World Rugby it seems didn't have contingency plans so thats a failure on their part but even without them they still should attempt to deliver their product as expected. I get the sense that they havent exhausted all means and it boils down to cost rather than potential to reschedule which is frankly pathetic.

Yes, I've worked on contingency plans and DR, too. And I've lived through conditions that have seen them implemented. But generally, a contingency plan involves a few hundred people who have been at least minimally trained on what to do following a plan that - as you say - has been tested.

I would be very surprised if you had a contingency plan that would enable you to relocate or reschedule up to 70,000 (untrained and unsuspecting) fans and a couple of thousand volunteers at one or two days' notice when there is a weather event ongoing that restricts travel. The stress on local infrastructure, hotel rooms, ticket reallocation, venue security, transport and transport ticketing would be considerable and probably have second order effects that would be hard to predict or manage. Would you want to try to do that without testing it first? And if not, when was the window of opportunity for testing?

There's also a whole area of risk and public scrutiny that outsourced services aren't exposed to. Imagine if someone is injured because they're moving between locations on a day when there's a travel warning in effect. That would create big problems for the whole tournament, even if it wasn't their fault.

It's clearly not about money, because the organisers are refunding the ticket prices. If there is a cost issue, it must be a big one if it's more cost effective to give up all the revenue from a game.

None of us really know how they've reached the conclusions they have. But I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt; I don't know what issues they've considered and options they've tried, but the RWC has been pretty professionally run so far so it's sensible to assume they have planned for it and that there are bigger obstacles than we can see.

Collapse2005 wrote:

BamBam wrote:So you're annoyed that England haven't picked up injuries before the knockouts? Seems a bit of an odd stance to be honest

Not as odd as your obvious re-framing of my comment to side step the fact that playing less attritional games is an obvious advantage and instead frame at as a desire on my part to see people get injured. Your comment barely deserves a response.

Which bit is being reframed?

I said the England v France game being cancelled has no real impact on anything, and you responded with "yes, but Billy or Manu could have got injured but instead England get to go into the quarter finals with a clean bill of health"

The noises from the England camp were that Billy and Marler weren't going to play anyway due to knocks, so that's at least one player who wouldn't have potentially got injured anyway

The logic behind why its an advantage to England seems fairly obvious, are you playing silly on purpose?

There is literally nothing wrong with that comment, playing one less game is advantageous and reduces the risk of injury to vital players.

You think its an advantage that we've got 3 extra potential training days and no fresh injuries. I think its a disadvantage that a few of our key players have had less than a half of game time this tournament (Mako, Nowell, Slade)

I'm not just saying this as an England fan, I've said it 20 times now but the key is the Scotland v Japan game, if it was Ireland / Wales / Australia in our position I'd have no complaints

Poorfour wrote:

Collapse2005 wrote:I suspect if you have properly contingency plans it is not.

As part of my job I write contingency plans for services outsourced to regions that are prone to natural disasters. As part of the plans I test the contingencies which means creating natural disaster scenarios and implementing your plan at the drop of a hat to test how well they work. World Rugby it seems didn't have contingency plans so thats a failure on their part but even without them they still should attempt to deliver their product as expected. I get the sense that they havent exhausted all means and it boils down to cost rather than potential to reschedule which is frankly pathetic.

Yes, I've worked on contingency plans and DR, too. And I've lived through conditions that have seen them implemented. But generally, a contingency plan involves a few hundred people who have been at least minimally trained on what to do following a plan that - as you say - has been tested.

I would be very surprised if you had a contingency plan that would enable you to relocate or reschedule up to 70,000 (untrained and unsuspecting) fans and a couple of thousand volunteers at one or two days' notice when there is a weather event ongoing that restricts travel. The stress on local infrastructure, hotel rooms, ticket reallocation, venue security, transport and transport ticketing would be considerable and probably have second order effects that would be hard to predict or manage. Would you want to try to do that without testing it first? And if not, when was the window of opportunity for testing?

There's also a whole area of risk and public scrutiny that outsourced services aren't exposed to. Imagine if someone is injured because they're moving between locations on a day when there's a travel warning in effect. That would create big problems for the whole tournament, even if it wasn't their fault.

It's clearly not about money, because the organisers are refunding the ticket prices. If there is a cost issue, it must be a big one if it's more cost effective to give up all the revenue from a game.

None of us really know how they've reached the conclusions they have. But I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt; I don't know what issues they've considered and options they've tried, but the RWC has been pretty professionally run so far so it's sensible to assume they have planned for it and that there are bigger obstacles than we can see.

You don't need to move any fans to play the game behind closed doors. In any case moving the fans isnt the issue, they make their own way to the game. Its the volunteers that is the issue but World rugby should be planning for those things.

Collapse2005 wrote:You don't need to move any fans to play the game behind closed doors. In any case moving the fans isnt the issue, they make their own way to the game. Its the volunteers that is the issue but World rugby should be planning for those things.

They do. And that introduces all sorts of risks around transport, hotels etc, all of which I mentioned. The only real point is that there are factors being considered that we won't be aware of from the outside.

Given that the RWC is where almost all of World Rugby's income comes from (check their accounts), they won't be cancelling matches for the fun of it. A game like England v France is probably worth around £25m to WR. For comparison, the profit it made from RWC 2015 (which will be bigger than 2019) was £189.5m.

A fan isn't going to go to the game if they cant get transport there or accommodation if necessary. What risks are there other than a smaller than expected crowd showing up? Any game I went to I only went if I could guarantee my route there and back and accommodation if I needed it. I booked everything for the Italy v SA game, match tickets, shinkansen etc two days before the game. Why would it be any different for fans going to rescheduled games? In my view playing a game in front of no crowd is better than calling the game off anyway at least travelling fans could watch the game in a fanzone.

Transport in Japan is so unbelievably precise and efficient that I cant imagine it couldnt handle a venue change. There was also no shortage of accommodation anywhere I visited. Its an enormous country. You go to a game in Kobe you can fairly easily stay in Kyoto, Nara or Osaka if you wish.

For both of the games cancelled they wouldn't have even needed to change venue as each of those games more than likely could have been played at the same venue the following day.

Collapse2005 wrote:

Poorfour wrote:

Collapse2005 wrote:I suspect if you have properly contingency plans it is not.

As part of my job I write contingency plans for services outsourced to regions that are prone to natural disasters. As part of the plans I test the contingencies which means creating natural disaster scenarios and implementing your plan at the drop of a hat to test how well they work. World Rugby it seems didn't have contingency plans so thats a failure on their part but even without them they still should attempt to deliver their product as expected. I get the sense that they havent exhausted all means and it boils down to cost rather than potential to reschedule which is frankly pathetic.

Yes, I've worked on contingency plans and DR, too. And I've lived through conditions that have seen them implemented. But generally, a contingency plan involves a few hundred people who have been at least minimally trained on what to do following a plan that - as you say - has been tested.

I would be very surprised if you had a contingency plan that would enable you to relocate or reschedule up to 70,000 (untrained and unsuspecting) fans and a couple of thousand volunteers at one or two days' notice when there is a weather event ongoing that restricts travel. The stress on local infrastructure, hotel rooms, ticket reallocation, venue security, transport and transport ticketing would be considerable and probably have second order effects that would be hard to predict or manage. Would you want to try to do that without testing it first? And if not, when was the window of opportunity for testing?

There's also a whole area of risk and public scrutiny that outsourced services aren't exposed to. Imagine if someone is injured because they're moving between locations on a day when there's a travel warning in effect. That would create big problems for the whole tournament, even if it wasn't their fault.

It's clearly not about money, because the organisers are refunding the ticket prices. If there is a cost issue, it must be a big one if it's more cost effective to give up all the revenue from a game.

None of us really know how they've reached the conclusions they have. But I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt; I don't know what issues they've considered and options they've tried, but the RWC has been pretty professionally run so far so it's sensible to assume they have planned for it and that there are bigger obstacles than we can see.

You don't need to move any fans to play the game behind closed doors. In any case moving the fans isnt the issue, they make their own way to the game. Its the volunteers that is the issue but World rugby should be planning for those things.

Yup. Should be old school.

Venue is changed and only the two teams go to the new venue to play it. Its in a closed stadium and you have it with out without the camera crews. No fans, no security needed, no food vendors, no marshalls, not even ball boys/girls (the subs can fetch the balls)

I'm no tournament organiser but I'd think that each ground will have a team of cameramen/directors/etc so moving a game from venue A to venue B should be easy as venue B already has the camera crews etc already in the local area. All you do is say that fans cant attend the game so that fans in areas suffering from the effects of the typhoon dont go venturing outside and potentially being harmed.

Hell, even getting McInally to play Leitch in a game of Jonah Lomu rugby to settle the pool is better than jsut binning things!

Surely the most sensible solution would be to work out a way to play the game by hook or by crook, first and foremost.

Begin from the basis of can we get a game on a pitch with 46 players and three officials. Then can we get the game televised. Then can we get fans in the stadium.

Players give their lives to occasions like this. The Scotland boys have been away from their families from months and months. Their lead analyst has missed the birth of his first child. They deserve better than this.

But then this whole tournament is about spreading rugby further than it's traditional base. If Scotland beat Japan then we have the traditional five nations and tri-nations battling it out. The rest of the world being cannon fodder is not much to show for 23 years of professionalism. Do World Rugby really want to do everything to get the game on or would they rather Japan move through?

Because if Scotland go in ahead of Japan they will surely face serious questions about what they're doing to spread rugby. Questions that cannot be answered by simply moving it's flagship tournament into a massive great storm every couple of decades. Like why are the Pacific Nations' players getting better, but their national teams becoming worse. If this world cup will show anything it will be how far World Rugby lets down the rugby world. Failure to plan, failure to look beyond superficial fixes, failure to support the poorest nations, failure to support their exploitation and ultimately, if matches continue to be cancelled, failure to put on a genuine tournament that carries any integrity whatsoever. But that's okay because the world cup is in Japan, and they can't even get that right.