Cyril Haearn wrote:Is rugby a particularly brutal and exhausting sport?
Do the players need a week to recover between games?
Why is the word 'game' used? 'Fight' or 'battle' or 'challenge' might be better
At that level the answer is about a week recovery. It's attritional. If you've got short turnarounds you'll get injuries.
If they played the cancelled games a day later you might be ok but it's the world cup, there's other teams playing then. That might leave space a few days later but what's the point? The team doesn't have as long to recover, analyse, coach, train then taper for the next game.
Suddenly you've got one team at a disadvantage during the knock out stages when there's only good teams. Play the game to get knocked out in the next. No point.
There's just a few cases where a team played the better teams early on and the last was the one they banked on getting the big points. That has gone and you're out. Rough indeed. But the teams already through with a game to spare due to easier games at the start won't want to play the last game with a very short recovery period but it'll be one system for all or it's simply not fair.
Imho either option will benefit some but disadvantage others. England vs Australia in the first knockout stage with 3 days to prepare?
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