Allan Massie: Win or lose, the sun will rise tomorrow

FROM 8:30am to 10:15am today, no one who usually reads this column will be doing so. Accordingly speculation about today’s game is futile. What one can say, however, is that if today should see the end of this World Cup for Scotland, it’s not exactly the end of the world.

A narrow defeat, though disappointing, wouldn’t be a disaster. The sun will rise again tomorrow and the Six Nations will follow in the Spring – a tournament more important to Scotland than the World Cup, if only because we have a real chance of winning it.

The truth is, of course, we shouldn’t be in this position. Today’s match should have been about coming first or second in the pool, not about qualification. But there it is: a momentary loss of concentration allowed Argentina to score a try, and a lack of patience and precision prevented us from getting the score that would have salvaged the game.

Let’s get the nonsense stuff out of the way; that is, England’s attempt at ball-switching in the Romanian game. Even if officials hadn’t spotted and prevented it, a switch of the ball would have made no difference to the result. The intention – a pretty silly one, if you ask me – was presumably to boost Jonny Wilkinson’s confidence by giving him a better ball for his conversion attempt. Unlawful and stupid. Still, the RFU has dealt with it with uncommon alacrity, suspending two of their backroom staff, Dave Alred and Paul Stridgeon, for the Scotland game. The poor dears aren’t even permitted to enter the stadium. By taking this swift action, the RFU has headed off an IRB enquiry; smart. Now let’s forget it.

So far this has been a good World Cup, even though for the big guns the action won’t really take off till next weekend. There have been two outstanding performances: Ireland’s against Australia, and New Zealand’s against France. Wales let victory over South Africa slip from their grasp, just like us against Argentina. So far, too, there has been rather less of the safety-first, bang the ball in the air and hope the opposition make a mistake, stuff than there was in France four years ago. Attitudes may, however, change when we come to the knock-out stage.

There hasn’t been much in the way of innovation; even the Irish “choke tackle” has been on display for some time. This isn’t surprising. The Laws of rugby are complicated, but the game itself remains essentially simple. That’s how the All Blacks play it. You drive forward, protect your ball at the tackle, re-cycle it quickly, have your backs running good angles at speed, time and deliver your passes right, and the tries will come. If the opposing defence holds firm and tries don’t come by the running-and-passing game, then you put the ball behind the defence. Sometimes a try results from the kick-through. Sometimes it doesn’t, but even then, it induces uncertainty in the defence next time you’re on the attack.

Over the years the breakdown law has kept changing, so that you have to adapt your play accordingly, but the essentials don’t change. The All Blacks play classical rugby with accuracy and at speed. That’s why they win most of their matches.

The format of the cup remains unsatisfactory however. One understands the desire, and doubtless the need, to draw the biggest possible TV audience, and therefore the scheduling ensures that the top-rated teams always play at the weekend. Nevertheless, it’s ridiculous and unfair that the weaker teams should be faced with a four-day turn-round between matches, while the stronger ones are granted adequate time for rest and recuperation. Surely each of the top-ranked countries should have to endure one four-day turn-round with one midweek pool game. They have, after all, more in the way of reserve strength than their weaker brethren.

There have happily been few reasonable complaints about the refereeing. For the record I thought Wayne Barnes did well in our Argentinian game, no matter the argument about Contepomi perhaps being offside at the death. It was pleasing that the Scotland management made nothing of this. Nevertheless, though England, who have had several players yellow-carded, might disagree, one still has the impression that referees come down harder on misdemeanours when the offending player belongs to a lowly-rated team and to be correspondingly lenient with offenders from top sides.

There was an example early in the New Zealand-France match when Israel Dagg took Damien Traille out in the air as he was leaping to catch Morgan Parra’s kick to the wing. Referee Alain Rolland gave a scrum to the All Blacks for Traille knocking the ball on. Dagg’s offence went unpunished. But if he had been a Tongan or American, there would surely have been a penalty at least, and probably ten minutes in the bin. One thought of that dubious decision at Cardiff in 2010 when the mere suspicion of contact as Lee Byrne leapt to catch his own kick on the follow-up, saw Phil Godman penalised and binned, and cost Scotland the match. God, in the shape of the referee, is usually on the side of the big battalions.