All Blacks under fire from Stephen Jones again

New Zealand All Blacks prop Owen Franks. Photo / Brett Phibbs.

New Zealand is rugby's least-civilised nation and the All Blacks answer to different rules than the rest of the world.

That's according to Stephen Jones, perhaps the international media's most outspoken critic of the All Blacks.

In his latest column for The Sunday Times, Jones expressed his amazement that Sanzaar opted against taking action against prop Owen Franks for what some observers believed was an eye-gouge against Wallabies lock Kane Douglas in last weekend's Bledisloe Cup win in Wellington.

"Are people too scared of New Zealand to take a stand? Do New Zealand dominate Sanzar [sic] so much?" Jones wrote. "And so yet another horror is added to the litany of shame."

Franks was not cited by Australia or Sanzaar after the incident, where he ran his hand over the face of Douglas early on in the All Blacks' win.

Jones claimed Franks "curled his fingers into a claw, then inserted them towards and apparently into the eye sockets of Douglas". But the Australian has since said he had no complaints about the behaviour of his opponent.

"I probably didn't realise how bad it looked until after the game [when watching it on TV]," Douglas said. "My eyes were fine and it all happened so quickly I was on to the next thing in the game.

"I didn't think of it like that. It was an All Black trying to stop me driving through the maul, arms everywhere and everything happening in a few seconds. I've got no issue at all but obviously you want to be protecting the eyes of players."

But, despite Douglas' feelings, the incident still earned Jones' ire.

"The grotesque reality that the All Blacks are subject to an entirely different disciplinary code than the rest of the world, has yet again been exposed," he wrote.

And the Welsh writer believed Jones the failure to cite Franks was merely the latest in a long line of controversial judicial decisions involving the All Blacks, citing the infamous Brian O'Driscoll incident from the 2005 Lions tour to these shores.

"The craven abrogation by the citing officer reminds you forcibly of arguably the most horrific incident of all in Christchurch in 2005, when Keven Mealamu and Tana Umaga of New Zealand picked up O'Driscoll, not then in possession of the ball, carried him back a few yards and drove him head-first into the ground," he wrote.

"It looked horrendous enough at the time. Then a different camera angle appeared, which showed that it could have killed O'Driscoll. Instead, the spear tackle simply ruled him out of a Lions tour, in which he was captain, with a dislocated shoulder. The citing officer was found that evening scuttling through the departure lounge at Christchurch airport, waving away pertinent questions as he disappeared. No action was ever taken."

Jones asked whether, in the minds of New Zealanders, blame was "a matter of nationality" as opposed to a combinations of facts, image and safety.

"Comparisons have been drawn all week with rugby's more civilised civilised nations," he wrote, noting that in his eyes Franks' apparent foul play was worse than recent incidents involving England's Chris Ashton, Wales' Tomas Francis and Argentina's Mariano Galarza, all of whom were all suspended.

Jones argues that World Rugby must take action, otherwise future All Blacks series would feature "physical danger for every player who visits New Zealand".