Tuilagi ban highlights bias against smaller nations

Let me start by saying this has been a brilliant World Cup.

It is incredible for me, as someone who played at the first three, in 1987, 1991 and 1995, to see how this tournament has grown to where it is now. Sell-out crowds of 90,000 at Wembley, packed stadiums up and down the country, incredible high-octane rugby.

The organisers and teams should be extremely proud of the entertainment they have laid on. It is a great shame then that there have been some issues that have distracted from the great feast of rugby, things which have confused and upset fans.

The five-week ban handed down to Samoa’s Alesana Tuilagi on Wednesday for a ‘knee’ to the face of Japan’s Harumichi Tatekawa was, I am sad to say, just the latest example of huge inconsistency in terms of punishments meted out to players. There have been accusations of bias where tier-two nations are concerned and I can understand why.

How else can you explain a five-week ban for Tuilagi and just a warning for Sam Burgess for a dangerously high tackle on Michael Hooper last Saturday? I am not saying Burgess deserved to be banned. I am just asking how is it possible that their punishments differ so hugely? It is a joke.

Actually, it is not a joke at all. It has ruled one of Samoa’s best players out of their final group game against Scotland and out of the start of the Aviva Premiership season as well.

And for what? For running into an opponent who has got his head on the wrong side of the body and made a poor tackle? Come on. This is a contact sport. If we start banning people for running into their opponents then we will not have many players left on the pitch.

That is the way the Islanders play rugby. They take the ball into contact and try to knock their opponents backwards and break the tackle. If you want them to play – and they light up the World Cup every four years, so we should very much want them to play – then you need to treat them fairly.

The Islanders provide players to pretty much every top club in the world, and they are nearly always the best, most exciting players at those clubs. But why would the likes of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa want to keep coming back to the World Cup to be treated like this every four years?

I have already addressed, in a previous column, the issue of scheduling at World Cups, which is clearly stacked against tier-two nations and makes their job twice as hard. But this issue of discipline and officiating is the thing that worries me most as it is a disturbing trend in general.

In my day, there was not nearly so much focus on the officials. Now it is all about them; how they will referee the breakdown, how they will referee the scrum, what the television match official will or will not spot, how you can influence them.

The scary thing is that despite all the technology and the edicts, it is all so inconsistent. And apparently so stacked against the smaller nations. I wonder whether that would have been a five-week ban had it been a New Zealand player rather than Tuilagi.

Jonah Lomu did that kind of thing every time he played and we all applauded him. Not just applauded him. We copied him. He changed the game of rugby. I was 82kg in 1991. By 1995 I was 95kg. Even my mum thought I was on steroids!

The use of the TMO is a major bugbear of mine and it risks ruining the game. It just seems incredibly inconsistent.

If you are spotted leading with the shoulder in a match, as Jannie du Plessis was in the South Africa v Scotland match last weekend, you might get a yellow card and miss 10 minutes of the game. But if it is not dealt with at the time, like Nemani Nadolo in the Fiji v Australia game or Michael Hooper in the England v Australia game, then you are cited and risk copping a ban.

There is such a huge disparity in terms of the punishment – and so little accountability. Nadolo, Fiji’s star player, missed arguably their biggest game of the tournament against Wales. It is worrying. And confusing for fans.

Romania’s Catalin Fercu was shown a yellow card against Canada for taking out Nick Blevins in the air. But he did not jump for the ball and kept his eyes on it the entire time.

What was he supposed to do? It seems you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

I would like to see the referees just go out and referee the game and let it flow. Maybe they would enjoy the game more and the crowds would enjoy it more. That is what rugby is meant to be about; entertainment and winning, not officiating and endless replays. As I say, I do not want to dwell on the negatives. I do not want to be talking about the TMO all the time, or the scheduling, which is so patently unfair on the smaller nations. I just want to enjoy the celebration of rugby.

I am just thankful Australia made it through Pool A. I actually felt sorry for the Poms and for Stuart Lancaster at the start of the week, especially when all that nonsense came out about Billy Vunipola at that function we were at. If anyone was slagging England off at that function it was undoubtedly me!

It is a huge shame for the tournament that the hosts are out and I question how it was allowed to happen that four of the world’s top 10 teams were in the same pool.

But as I said before the game, England had four years to find out their best XV and still did not know it, or how they wanted to play, on the day of their biggest game since the 2007 final. I would repeat the (tongue in cheek) offer I made to Bill Beaumont and Fran Cotton in 1999 to help out with a bit of coaching in the back division, but I suspect the offer would be treated much as it was then.

Anyway, I am excited to see what Australia can produce against Wales on Sunday morning (NZ time). We just have to forget about last weekend now.

This is a new game. Do or die. If we can make it through as pool winners I reckon we have a good chance of going all the way. I just hope that it is decided on brilliant, flowing rugby rather than someone watching a computer screen in a small room.