Smaller nations at the Rugby World Cup are delivering sub-par performances because of scheduling demands that force fast turnarounds on them, Scotland’s team doctor said yesterday.
Scheduling of matches at the World Cup has been an issue for the smaller rugby nations, who are forced to play their pool games in a shorter time span.
Samoa, for example, are playing all four of their games in 16 days, which prompted center Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu to launch a tirade on Twitter earlier this week about the fast turnarounds for his team.
Scotland doctor James Robson, who has also been the team doctor on five British and Irish Lions tours, said the turnarounds were asking a lot of the players.
“I don’t think it’s dangerous, but I think it results in below-par performances,” Robson said in Wellington. “People are battered and bruised, they are quite sore and they’re quite stiff. It’s a hard ask to do that and to perform at their best.”
Many of the smaller nations had pushed their higher ranked opponents in their first games at this year’s tournament, but their performances were noticeably falling off.
Namibia were thrashed 87-0 by South Africa on Thursday, their third game in 12 days.
“I think to turnaround in international Test rugby now within four days is asking a great deal of the players that we are trying to care for,” Robson said.
Ideally players would have four days to recover before they were even back to full training, he added.
“And that’s training adequately and fully, not playing another game, so I believe it takes at least four days to recover from the rigors of an international Test match. The minimum would have to be five days, given you need four days to recover. Ideally you’d want between six and eight,” he said.
Robson said it was important for world rugby to balance the health of players with financial considerations.
“From a player welfare point of view, while absolutely cognisant of the commercial needs of world rugby, we do have to see if there’s some other format for the future where we can have people playing with adequate turnaround time, and therefore performing at their best,” he said.
Robson added that coaches needed to be mindful of the physical strain they were placing their players under, particularly in training.
“The role of player welfare has to start at home,” Robson added.
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