WORLD RUGBY HAS cleared Ireland of accusations made by journalist Stephen Jones in the Sunday Times that the IRFU attempted to pressure Rugby World Cup organisers into cancelling the Pool A fixture between Japan and Scotland amid Typhoon Hagibis.

On Sunday, the IRFU released a statement vehemently denying Jones’ claims in the paper, describing them as “completely false”.

Irish rugby’s governing body added that “the inference within the article that the IRFU made representations to World Rugby on the matter is totally without foundation”, and called for Jones to withdraw his “scurrilous and untrue allegation”.

At a post-pool stage media briefing on Tuesday morning, World Rugby’s Chief Operating Officer and Rugby World Cup tournament director Alan Gilpin denied that any decisions regarding fixture cancellations or rearrangements were influenced by pressure from any national unions, and confirmed World Rugby did not discuss the matter of Japan versus Scotland with the IRFU.

“While we had appropriate discussions with a number of unions, no decisions were based on pressure from any particular unions,” Gilpin said.

And it’s also important to clarify that we did not have those discussions with Ireland.

Jones is yet to retract his allegations or refer to them publicly apart from a tweet in which he promoted his “exclusive story”.

Typhoon Hagibis resulted in the deaths of more than 70 people and caused widespread damage to the Rugby World Cup’s host nation. Four pool fixtures were cancelled in its midst, but Japan-Scotland went ahead as scheduled.

Ryan Bailey steps into the presenter’s chair where he’s joined by Murray Kinsella and Eoin Toolan on the line for Japan to tee up one of the biggest, if not the biggest week in Irish rugby: a World Cup quarter-final against back-to-back champions New Zealand.

The42 Rugby Weekly / SoundCloud