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Why Rugby World Cup Fixtures Are Not Fair Game on the Minnows
Published: June 30, 2015
The pressure in the balls; the heat at kick-off times; the distances travelled between venues; whether wives and/or girlfriends are allowed within a 20-mile radius of the squad; the number of dwarves tossed.
As sure as night follows day, these will come up in some from or another—the dwarves perhaps not so often.
One angle specific to the Rugby World Cup, however, is the raw deal many of the smaller nations receive when it comes to their schedule.
Indeed, the arrangement of the pool matches never fails to befuddle.
A history of imbalance
In 2003, lowly Namibia had to play Argentina and Ireland in the space of four days. They shipped 131 points across the two games, scored 21 and, as a reward for emerging from the mincer of those two daunting fixtures, faced hosts Australia six days after that. The 142-0 scoreline recorded by the Wallabies remains the biggest winning margin the tournament has ever seen.
They still had Romania to deal with before they could go home, the Eastern Europeans themselves having been forced to play on October 18 and 22 against the Pumas and the host nation, conceding 140 between them. It clearly hadn’t taken as much out of the Oaks as it had the Southern Africans, with Romania winning 37-7.
It went on again in 2007, Japan getting the particularly thin end of the wedge with three days off between a thumping by the Wallabies and a heroic 31-35 loss to Fiji. The Australians, by the way, had a full week to get over that taxing run-out against the Blossoms before facing Wales.
Little Portugal didn’t fair much better, hemmorhaging a century against the All Blacks before three days' rest and another run out against Italy.
2011 saw more tough scheduling meted out as the USA endured a four–day ...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Rugby Union
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