Does Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu have a point?

Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu has been suspended from all forms of rugby by the International Rugby Board pending a hearing because he used Twitter to criticise the referee after the game between South Africa and Samoa. Calling Nigel Owens a racist is clearly not on, but he also said he was biased. I’m not going to defend him calling anyone a racist without evidence, but let’s see whether his argument of bias holds. I’ll also look at his claim that tier 2 nations were given less rest time than the tier 1 nations.

Owens is Welsh, and Wales were playing in the same group as South Africa and Samoa. Using referees from countries playing in the same group inevitably leads to questions of bias, and the IRB should prevent this from happening.  

Before the game I realised the ref was Welsh, and as a Springbok supporter tweeted: “Best result for Wales is a win for South Africa. Does Nigel Owens realise that? #rugby #gobokke!”. Ten minutes into the game Owens got in the way of the Springboks and I tweeted: “Nigel Owens: "Sorry I won't do that again". Get out of the way ref. #gobokke #rugby #RWC2011”. At the end of the first half a Samoan was running towards the try line, looking for someone to pass to. The ball hit Owens, and I tweeted: “Nigel Owens gets involved again. Samoa was running towards the line, but ran out of players to pass to. #gobokke #rugby #RWC2011”. As the ball had hit him, Owens stopped play and then called time on the half. If the ball had not hit him, it is possible that Samoa could have scored, and a scrum at that point may also have led to Samoa scoring.  A good piece of play came to nothing, and the players left the field. I didn’t hear whether Owens said anything to the Samoans after getting in their way.

These two events, an apology to South Africa, and preventing Samoa scoring looked biased to me, and I was hoping for a Springbok win. A later tweet of mine read: “I'm not complaining, but Nigel Owens does appear to be favouring SA. #gobokke #rugby #RWC2011”.

It looks as if Sapolu has a point about bias.

Sapolu has been complaining loudly on Twitter and in interviews that the tier 2 nations had less time to recover between matches than the tier 1 nations.

The table below shows the rest period that the various countries had during the pool games.

Country	Rest 1	Rest 2	Rest 3	Mimimum	Average
New Zealand	7	8	8	7	7.7
Scotland	4	11	6	4	7.0
France	8	6	7	6	7.0
England	8	6	7	6	7.0
Australia	6	6	8	6	6.7
Italy	9	7	5	5	7.0
Ireland	6	8	7	6	7.0
South Africa	6	5	8	5	6.3
Wales	7	8	6	6	7.0
Argentina	7	8	7	7	7.3
Tonga	5	7	10	5	7.3
Romania	7	7	4	4	6.0
Fiji	7	8	7	7	7.3
Namibia	4	8	4	4	5.3
Japan	6	5	6	5	5.7
USA	4	8	4	4	5.3
Samoa	4	7	5	4	5.3
Canada	4	9	5	4	6.0
Georgia	4	10	4	4	6.0
Russia	5	5	6	5	5.3

There is a large gap between the average rest periods for Namibia, Russia, USA and Samoa (5.3 days) and New Zealand (7.7 days). It is interesting that Fiji, Tonga and Argentina have an average of 7.3 days between matches.

The ability to recover between matches depends on the rest time between games, and looking at the shortest rest periods for the teams shows that of the teams playing in the 6 nations and tri-nations tournaments, only Scotland had a 4 day rest period while most of the tier 2 nations had a 4 day rest. Namibia and Georgia had two rest periods of only 4 days.

The graph below shows the minimum rest days between matches during the pool stage of the tournament.

It isn’t fair to allow some teams a longer rest period than others, and the scheduling of matches during the World Cup needs to be reviewed. It appears that the schedule is dictated by TV broadcasters rather than fairness.

The IRB is bending down to advertisers and broadcasters, not acting in the interests of players and supporters.