Rugby World Cup 2019 schedule a step in right direction but four-day turnarounds remain unacceptable

With welfare at the forefront of rugby debate, would adding an extra week to the tournament be too much to ask?

The fixture schedule for the 2019 World Cup was announced on Thursday (Getty)

After a 2015 World Cup schedule that made a mockery of the smaller nations, World Rugby vowed to bring some sort of balance to the time between each match at Japan 2019. All eyes were on games such as the All Blacks vs South Africa and Wales vs Australia when the fixtures were announced on Thursday morning, yet once the ceremony had finished the number-crunching quickly began to show who has it good and who’s up against it from the get-go.

On the face of things, it’s a marked improvement, with no tier two nations playing a tier one nation off the back of a short rest period. But while that will appease some voices of discontent, the fact that short rest periods are still there goes against everything that is being discussed 24/7: player welfare.

Twelve teams will face four-day turnarounds, a staggering number when you consider what players have to go through between matches in the 21st Century. It will allow players one rest day, one recovery session and just one day’s full training before playing again, and regardless of tier one or tier two opposition, the strain on the body during the three-week pool stage will be greater than ever.

The only solace is that those 12 teams features the likes of New Zealand, England and South Africa, proving that at least the punishment will be shared across the leading nations and the smaller countries. There will be counter arguments that suggest a squad of 31 players allow for full squad rotation, but you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be enough players who go back-to-back to fill a side in itself – replacements and all.

Once the schedule was announced, the inevitable head coach reactions followed, with England’s Eddie Jones considering his dates and venues a “blessing” while Warren Gatland was equally as pleased with Wales’ itinerary. But spirits will not have been so jovial in South Africa.

The Springboks will play all four of their pool games in the space of 18 days, giving them an average of four-and-a-half days’ rest between matches. To make matters worse, they open their account against the fearsome All Blacks, a side who six weeks ago beat them 57-0. Along with the USA and whichever team fill the vacant Repechage spot, the Springboks have the most testing schedule of any team, and after facing New Zealand and likely Namibia, they will have just four days to prefer for what could be a qualifying-decider with Italy – a team that beat Allister Coetzee’s side for the first time last autumn.

The Springboks have been dealt a tough hand for the 2019 World Cup (Getty)

Unsurprisingly, Japan have the longest time over the pool stage due to the fact that they will open the tournament against Tonga on 20 September, giving them 24 days between first and last game. Scotland, New Zealand, Tonga and the African qualifiers will enjoy 22 days, giving a nice blend of tier one and two nations, while Ireland, Italy, England, Australia and Wales will have 21 due to the fact that they will predominantly play at primetime weekend slots to maximise both the venue and television audience.

But while these changes are a positive step for the smaller nations, four-day turnarounds at World Cups are still unacceptable, especially for smaller nations like Romania, Georgia and the USA in which the drop-off between first and second XV is much larger than in the tier one squads. With welfare at the forefront of rugby debate, would adding an extra week to the tournament to allow four full weeks for the pool stage be too much to ask every four years?

Scratch that thought, as we don’t want to open another can of worms with a global calendar, do we?