While Ireland were this afternoon fielding questions about Sunday’s clash with Romania, the lowly ‘Oaks’ were taking to the Olympic Stadium field ahead of tomorrow’s Pool D match against France.
It hardly seems fair the world’s 17th-ranked team have to play the seventh and fifth best nations in such quick succession but there was very little sympathy on offer at St George’s Park for the lowly Romanians.
“It’s just the way the chips fell and there’s not a whole lot we can do about it. I didn’t make the fixture list,” said a guilty-sounding Jack McGrath who, for the record, had nothing to do with designing the World Cup’s convoluted match list.
But so kind have the fixtures been to Ireland that one could almost imagine them being drawn up in IRFU HQ on Lansdowne Road. An eight-day rest between minnows Canada and Romania, then a week to prepare for both Italy and France – it could not be any better for Ireland who, along with England and Italy, officially have the cushiest schedules.
Neither the hosts, Ireland or their Pool D rivals have any less than six days’ rest between all their matches. As the below chart from Rugby World outlines, Samoa are pretty blessed with one five-day rest but every other nation has to cope with one turnaround of four days or less.
Reigning champions New Zealand are out Thursday, just four days after a very tough encounter with Argentina and most other top nations – including Scotland, Australia, France and South Africa – have to contend with just three rest days between matches.
Don’t get too excited about Pool D rivals France having to play Italy and Romania this week in quick succession, as it means they have TEN DAYS to prepare for the pivotal Cardiff encounter with Joe Schmidt’s men, once they dispose of Canada next week.
Ireland centre Jared Payne was today trying to convince journalists in Burton-on-Trent that it is not so great having a week to prepare for your games.
“It could be an advantage to us, but at the same time as a player sometimes you don’t mind the four-day turnarounds because you don’t have to do too much in the gym or too much on the pitch, you get to relax in between and sort of front up for the game, which is nice,” he said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdTRDTk5_C0
Spare a thought for everyone’s favourite second team, Japan, who have to pitch up in Gloucester tomorrow to face a fresh and rested Scotland just four days after their unbelievably courageous win over a monstrous bunch of Springboks.
Again, a wary McGrath is not overflowing with sympathy for the mighty minnows.
“Japan just beat South Africa, I wouldn’t say that’s getting stung. We’ll see tomorrow how they get on. It’s only stung if you lose the game,” said the Leinster loosehead.
“If they can back up the two games then they have a nine-day turnaround after that, so if you can play two games in four or five games and have a bit of a rest after then it’s not the end of the world.
“If it was just another four days after that, it’d be a bit unfair but it’s just the way it happened and that’s it.”
You’ve got to love this killer instinct the Irish squad have adopted, unless you’re from Romania or Japan of course.
