Fiji head coach John McKee says the scheduling at this year's Rugby World Cup has benefited the bigger nations.

Much has been said of the short turnaround in between pool matches in England. After defeat to the hosts in the tournament's opening match, McKee's side had only five days to prepare for their second game against two-time champions Australia. Similarly, Japan had only four days rest in between their historic victory over South Africa and heavy defeat to Scotland.

In contrast, both Australia and defending champions New Zealand played tier two nations Uruguay and Namibia respectively four days after their World Cup openers. Likewise, France opened against Italy on September 19 before taking on Romania just four days later.

"When you look at the scheduling you do wonder if this benefits one team more than another, certainly it looked like the bigger teams were playing smaller countries in their short turnaround times," McKee said during a media session at the team's Milton Keynes hotel on Wednesday.

"We had a massive task to play the opening game and then play Australia five days later. I give massive credit to our players and my backroom team who helped recover the players. They did a really good job to make sure they were fit and played well over the 13-day period. That would be a massive challenge for anyone."

Having also suffered defeat to Wales, Fiji will finish fourth in Pool A and therefore miss out on automatic qualification for the next World Cup in Japan. With both Tonga and Samoa looking set for similar fates, it means one Pacific Island team will likely miss out on 2019 altogether.

After Georgia narrowly saw of Namibia in Exeter on Wednesday, Tonga must avoid defeat to New Zealand in their final Pool C while an out-of-sorts Samoa will have to beat Scotland to have any chance of finishing third in Pool B.

McKee added: "We have to qualify first and that is a challenge in itself. With Samoa and Tonga likely needing to qualify as well it will be tough in the Pacific and Oceanic region looking forward to 2019.

"We have got about 27, maybe 28, Tests between now and Japan 2019 so we really need to be smart in our cycle and seeing it as a four-year cycle rather than on a yearly basis.

"I have only had 18 months with these guys so it was tough to build a squad for this tournament. We need to get younger players into the squad and develop them as much as we can so game plans and combinations can be installed in them early."