World Rugby says it's disappointed in the Scottish Rugby Union after its chief executive Mark Dodson confirmed it has sought legal advice regarding the potentially-cancelled game against Japan.
Sunday's match which Scotland must win to stay in the World Cup - is in the balance because of a Super Typhoon.
Dodson believes for the integrity of the competition the game needs to be played:
“My view is that we’re not going to let Scotland be the collateral damage for a decision that was taken in haste.
“I think there’s alternative venues around Japan. The point to me, we are talking about now is not whether the game will take place on Sunday, that will be a purely meteorological issue. The issue will be if it can’t take place then we’re really, really pressing the point that we need to have to get this game delayed 24 hours later.
“The first and most important is that we look after the safety of the general public. The second thing is for World Rugby to just simply state that the game has to be cancelled goes against the whole sporting integrity of the tournament.
“We have been preparing for this tournament now for four years, the guys have had over 100 days in camp, we’ve played games already and the fourth game in this particular case is pivotal.
“We’ve had consistent dialogue since the last three or four days around this with senior people at World Rugby, but World Rugby seem to be determined to stick to its plan that the match is either played on Sunday or indeed it is cancelled, and to have it cancelled and have our ability to progress from this group put at peril, we believe is absolutely unacceptable.
“World Rugby is pointing us back to the participation agreement. We’ve had legal opinion – from a leading QC – that challenges World Rugby’s interpretation.
“We don’t know that it is too late – we have to challenge it. But we should be talking about this from a rugby perspective, this is about the game and the rugby supporters across the world are absolutely astounded at this rigidity from World Rugby. The common sense approach to this is to play the game 24 hours later on perfect safety where we can make sure that the pool stages are completed, and the sporting integrity of the tournament remains intact.”
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