Whatever the cause and effect on this weekend’s games — and the preservation of life trumps everything else — the repercussions on the rest of this tournament and its reputation beyond 2019 is a considerable worry too.

Italy are out of the World Cup now in the most unsatisfactory set of circumstances. Irrespective of the likelihood of them beating New Zealand, being denied the opportunity to do so leaves a sour taste with more than the Azzurri.

Worse may follow – reputationally, not meteorologically – if the Japan-Scotland game falls by the wayside too, and the Scots are eliminated by this weather event. This scenario must have been debated dozens of times by organisers over the last year or two with a sense of dread.

But before we reach for words like “staggering” in relation to the absence of a contingency plan, it’s better to examine whether alternatives were available and realistic. Nothing in sport is worth a life, so on the basis of the expert advice it is the correct decision to cancel scheduled games this weekend.

Whether they could be replayed — or transferred to another part of Japan— is the kernel of this issue.

The problems with scheduling are self-evident, and the knockout phase is seemingly locked in in terms of dates, logistics and the concerns regarding the movement of people and the welfare of players. Rugby isn’t chess or golf after all. However, the organisers have known forever that without fixture integrity and a level playing field, any competition falls way below the standards it should set itself.

Typhoon Hagibis is beyond the control of the RWC organising committee, but contingency plans to deal with it should have been in the nearest top drawer and featured more than reimbursing fans for match tickets and awarding teams two points each. I’m sure the option of moving these games to another part of the country was robustly examined. I’m awaiting the reason it wasn’t tried.

An extra week off preparing for the last eight confers a competitive advantage on New Zealand, France and England for sure, but that isn’t the end of the world. The real concern lies in Italy’s elimination and with Sunday’s threatened Pool A fixture between Japan and Scotland.

Whatever alternative Gregor Townsend and his players were offered to flying home, eliminated by a weather freak, they would surely grab it and its associated inconveniences — the primary one being playing their quarter final with a five-day turnaround. It’s important to note that finishing second in Pool A would involve a six-day turnaround anyway.

This PR disaster only increases impatience for the business end of the tournament. Between blowouts and weather alerts, imagine what sort of World Cup we’d have had the hosts not electrified the sporting audience with their defeat of Ireland. It was the result of the tournament in every respect and the only defeat of a Tier 1 nation by a supposed subordinate.

Fiji gave Wales plenty of bother Wednesday. However, the chasm between the haves and the have-nots was underlined by Scotland’s demolition of Russia with a less-than-half-strength deck. Of the 32 games to date in Japan, 21 have been decided by 20 points or more, and 14 of them by 30 points-plus.

There’s only been five games where the margin was seven points or less, and with respect, one of those was Fiji’s defeat to Uruguay – the other major surprise of the tournament.

The intervention of Typhoon Hagibis ensures France are on a collision course with Wales in the quarter-final. The winner of that is guaranteed to avoid the All Blacks until the final. All things being equal - or as equal as they ever are with Les Bleus poured into the mix - England would have beaten France tomorrow. Either way, they’ve landed themselves a World Cup quarter-final against Australia and a possible semi against New Zealand. Some reward…

If the typhoon is an unwelcome gate-crasher in Japan, it wouldn’t be a World Cup without some class of a French mutiny. There’s been plenty of loose chat around the camp this week that the French players blocked a move by management to take the captaincy away from Guilhem Guirado.

Who knows with these things? This is a set-up where the current and next head coach are ‘working’ cheek-by-jowl with a squad that didn’t even feature Virimi Vatakawa when the original 31 were named — now he is a linchpin.

Don’t write off France on the basis of a barney in the camp. This will be used by the players as a motivation. That Guirado has been given a vote of confidence as captain by his colleagues will only galvanise the playing group. They won’t fear Wales.

If only they could settle the musical chairs at half back. The selection of Baptiste Serin and Romain Ntamack at half-back for the unconvincing win over the USA was a third different half-back partnership at this Rugby World Cup and France’s 16th different half-back partnership in their 43 matches since the last World Cup.

If the organisers manage to green-light Scotland and Japan, where does the pressure sit? If Gregor Townsend’s side lose Sunday, it is an enormous blow to the prestige or rugby union in Scotland. They were so disappointing against Ireland, but they’ve been able to target Japan from some distance without things getting anyway bothersome or complicated against Samoa or Russia.

However, how do they prepare for Japan? One of the most interesting qualities of the Japan attack coach Tony Brown is his willingness to employ disposable game plans — that he’s happy to wipe everything clean after a particular game.

It’s not a transition of game plan from one to the next - it’s more ‘this is the plan for Ireland, this is the plan for Scotland’. So we may not see as much of the all-dancing Japan that defeated Ireland and if that challenges Scotland to react and respond accordingly, then we get to see how capable they actually are.

The idea of these columns is to provide the ‘why’ something has or might happen. I am finding it hard to provide ‘why’ Scotland will win – though I believe they will. They will surely have observed how Ireland went unstructured against Japan and came unstuck. The intrigue will be in how they ‘re-structure’ their game with a ten like Finn Russell.

They should attempt to slow the tempo of the game, kill the flow of the Japanese, mauling them, drawing penalties from the lineouts, kicking those penalties deep, and try and take the legs from Japanese that way. A lot of that may go through the Scotland nine. Finn Russell is a ball player and when Scotland opt to put pace on their game, he is not a bad man to do it.

Ireland tried to play Japan at their own game, and that didn’t work. We meandered between unstructured and chaotic rugby and Japan thrive on chaos. I’ve written previously, that was the big miss in terms of Jonny Sexton not being on the field that afternoon.

Their post-Ireland review fed Japan’s belief they belong among the Tier 1s in a quarter-final. They are in no-lose territory in terms of public expectation.

Neither Scotland or Japan are a primary concern of Joe Schmidt and the players. Whether Samoa is the ‘sort of opposition’ you want to be facing a week out from the quarter final is a moot point - Ireland have no choice now either way now. That’s the price of the Japan defeat. Management has gone with as near their best fifteen as makes no difference. You can argue over the full-back or the back row but for everyone selected for tomorrow’s game, to entertain realistic hopes of delivering a first every semi-final, they need to perform against Samoa.

It would be a remarkable thing to under-perform against Samoa and expect to hit their straps a week later against the Springboks or All Blacks. That’s not how you build confidence. For feelgood reasons, this performance is as crucial as the result. Ireland should win but they have to bring a performance into the early days of next week.

Inconsistency is like a virus. You know how South Africa are going to play. With Ireland, you are not too sure. It’s not to say they can’t make the last four - but it raises question marks. The foundation stone is the ‘process’ – it’s just less clear these days.

A lot of people gave out about box-kicking, but Ireland have been particularly good at it. Is that still one of their cornerstones? We don’t know because in the past couple of months Ireland haven’t gone to the box kick as frequently. One wonders why…

Opposition may be aware of Murray’s box-kick, but it’s still either ‘my ball or your ball’, and you can do very little about that. It often comes down to want. Andrew Conway is a bonus in this area, but is he going 30% better than the incumbents at the moment? Because that’s what it would take to dislodge Earlsie or Jacob Stockdale, who score tries. It’s encouraging to see Henshaw and Aki in the centre tomorrow.

Having the frontline quartet for the last eight changes the impact and the options in midfield.

Genuine strength in depth is a priceless commodity heading into a World Cup quarter-final.

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