World Rugby have taken the unusual step of criticising their own officials as a whole for their performance in the opening week of the World Cup.
A number of dangerously high tackles marred the Samoa Russia game, which Samoa took 34-9, yet no red cards were issued.
This follows on from an Australian high tackle that went unpunished against Fiji and a poor offside decision that went against Argentina in their narrow loss to France.
Russia performed well in the match itself, before running out of steam due to the four-day turnaround from the Japan game (see yesterday).
Fiji will fall victim to the same scheduling failure today, as will England and Italy tomorrow. This is something the powers that be should have addressed before this tournament, but didn’t.
On a lighter note, I’ve learnt a new ‘Japanese’ word. When a caption appeared next to a prop saying “スローフォワード” in the Japanese katakana alphabet (one of the three used simultaneously in Japanese), I read it as ‘Slow Forward’.
I thought that was rather harsh. Props are generally not the quickest (I was one myself at school), but to point out their lack of pace rather than their strength seemed unnecessary. I also wondered if flankers would be “fast forwards”.
It actually turned out to mean ‘knock-on’, as the ‘sl’ and ‘th’ sound are rendered in the same way in katakana due to its phonic paucity. A ‘knock-on’ is therefore a ‘throw forward’.
Uruguay will be aided by Fiji’s quick turnaround in the first match to be played in the Tohoku (North East) region of Japan today, but I think the islanders will have enough to see them off.
CORRECTION: Thank you to Yuka, who pointed out that a “throw forward” is actually a forward pass and not a knock-on. A knock-on is just called a knock-on in Japanese.
Yesterday’s Match
Samoa 34-9 Russia (Kumagaya Rugby Stadium, Kumagaya)
Today’s Match
Fiji vs Uruguay (1415 JST) (Kamaishi Recovery Memorial Stadium, Kamaishi)
Expression of the day
スローフォワード (suro fowado)
Which means…
Forward pass!
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