Letter from Japan: Japan rebuilds and adapts, why can't the World Cup?

Perspective has never been far away on this trip, wonderful though it has been.

Shoeing has all but disappeared from the game of rugby in the professional era but there had to be a scrum of World Rugby officials who felt as if they have been raked as indiscriminately as any player from the amateur days as they awaited the coming of Typhoon Hagibis to Tokyo and the surrounding regions over the weekend.

The governing body's handling of this situation has been roundly criticised with the absence of any reluctance to switch venues and/or dates and absence of any real contingency plans perplexing most folk given Japan's unfortunate and ongoing exposure to all manner of natural disasters. Saying a typhoon of this magnitude was unexpected is true but it isn't satisfactory.