RWC making a mockery of Man of the Match awards

Foley

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Are you a leaguie who has no idea how George Burgess was rubbed out of the finals for throwing a water bottle?

Are you not even surprised by the random decisions of the judiciary and match review panel these days?

Well spare a thought for your union loving mates who have been left truly bewildered by a horrible Man of the Match decision in Australia’s massive RWC win over England this weekend.

Wallaby hero Bernard Foley scored a record 28-points, including two tries in a 33-13 win that knocked the hosts out of their own tournament.

David Pocock put in a super-human performance at the breakdown, disrupting England’s attack at every opportunity.

Without these two players, the score-line could have been very different.

Either of them could have been rightfully named Man of the Match.

Even Michael Hooper could have been in with a shout.

But in the worst decision in a rugby match since 2007 in Cardiff when Wayne Barnes sent Luke McAlister to the bin then missed a blatant forward pass to French replacement Frederic Michalak (still a tad bitter…), the Man of the Match award went to distraught English forward Joe Launchbury.

England’s burly lock had a fair game, sure. He threw his body around for 13 tackles and made 33-metres with the ball.

But was he the best player on the ground?

It’s an embarrassment to even suggest it.

So how did this happen?

Well, rather than an independent panel of the game’s heavyweights and media types, the award is put to Twitter in a ludicrous popularity contest.

Never mind that only certain portions of the population actually have Twitter. And of that grouping, very few of them actually check Twitter during the game.

It’s not the first surprising MoM award dished out so far this tournament.

Georgia’s captain Mamuka Gorgodze has become a cult figure at this RWC, and that popularity saw him get the gong against the All Blacks on Saturday…in a team that lost 43-10.

Judging by the booing Kiwi captain Richie McCaw received in his side’s first game against Argentina, he’ll need to play the best game in the history of rugby, kiss a few babies and save a puppy from a house-fire to even be considered for an MoM award.

These things matter and something needs to change.

It was bad when Darren Lockyer was embarrassingly named Man of the Match in the 2008 Rugby League World Cup final that Australia lost.

Cricket Australia stopped a similarly ridiculous popularity contest in 2011 when David Warner got the nod in Australia’s seven run test match loss to New Zealand in Hobart.

Will World Rugby heed these lessons or plow ahead, making a mockery of the whole notion of the award?

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