Sonny Bill Williams is red carded by referee Jerome Garces. Photo / Photosport
Sonny Bill Williams is red carded by referee Jerome Garces. Photo / Photosport
Naturally, the notion there could be a World Rugby conspiracy to end or limit the All Blacks' dominance has to be laughed out of town.
What paranoid nonsense. What patent madcap scepticism that the governing body would be feeling some kind of pressure, obligation even, to somehow hinder the All Blacks.
And yet, there is now a body of evidence that makes it not so easy to be sure this is the stuff of a fertile imagination.
There have been a number of irregular and unexplained decisions in the last decade that even those with the staunchest conviction that a fair play ethos pervades the halls of rugby power, must privately have their concerns that the runaway success of the All Blacks is not universally considered to be good for the game.
The conspiracy could be stoked further by wondering whether the failure to punish either Tana Umaga or Keven Mealamu in the first minute of the first test against the British Lions in 2005 has left some residual need to correct the impression the All Blacks are above the law?
What's brought this subject to the fore is World Rugby's decision to condemn the TMO from last week's Six Nations test between Wales and England for making an error in not awarding the former a try after 23 minutes.
What this did was increase the governing body's silence about the final minutes of the third test last year between the All Blacks and British Lions to deafening levels.
The decision by match referee Romain Poite to award the All Blacks a penalty only to change his mind after receiving confirmation from his TMO that he was right, remains one of the great unacknowledged scandals of recent times.
Poite was wrong to reverse his original decision to award the All Blacks a kickable penalty with the scored tied at 15-all. Lions hooker Ken Owens caught the ball in an offside position and while the law has elements of ambiguity, this was not one of those occasions.
A magnificent series came down to the last play and while it would have been the cruellest luck on Owens and a Lions squad that had played their hearts out and defied all expectations, the All Blacks should have been given the opportunity to kick for goal and take the glory.
That they weren't – that a referee spectacularly failed to apply the law as it stands – has dark implications when the context is considered.
Two years previously, South African referee Craig Joubert made a similar mistake in the last minute of the World Cup quarter-final between Scotland and Australia.
He wrongly awarded Australia a penalty instead of the scrum, allowing the Wallabies to win at the death and break Scottish hearts.
Referee Craig Joubert. Photo / Photosport
The uproar was ferocious – which led to World Rugby clarifying that Joubert had been wrong. Joubert's head was put on a stick to give the Scots some kind of closure – a token to which they could claim a Pyrrhic victory of sorts.
But when the All Blacks encountered the same injustice...nothing and who doesn't wonder if that would have been the same response by World Rugby had it been the Lions wrongly denied a kickable penalty in the last minute?
The much-loved Lions were in New Zealand, fighting not just to win a series but for their very survival. A hostile lobby of club owners in the UK wanted to squeeze the Lions out of the calendar and the composite side needed results to justify its existence.
There was also, maybe, a wider concern in some quarters that having won the 2011 and 2015 World Cups and 90 per cent of their tests since 2010, a series win against the Lions would deepen the All Blacks' sense of invincibility and diminish global interest.
What is inexplicable, is that following the second test, Sonny Bill Williams, who was rightly sent off for a reckless tackle on Anthony Watson, was suspended for four weeks.
Lions flanker Sean O'Brien, however, was cited for swinging his arm into the head of Waisake Naholo. It was missed on the night, despite Naholo being knocked out and forced off with concussion and then, strangely, the judicial hearing was cancelled with no explanation and O'Brien, one of the stars of the series, was free to play in the third test.
Stranger yet was that a few weeks later, World Rugby challenged it's own supposedly independent judicial panel – to review the decision to consider the All Blacks' 'game of three halves' fixture as a bona fide game.
The panel deemed that the fixture met the criteria of a 'proper game' and therefore could be counted in Williams' suspension period and he would therefore be available to play against the Wallabies in the first Bledisloe Cup clash of the year.
"While World Rugby respects the decision of the independent appeal committee to uphold the appeal by New Zealand's Sonny Bill Williams against the matches that counted towards his four-week suspension, it is surprised by the committee's interpretation of the definition of 'match' (which is defined in regulation 1 as 'a game in which two teams compete against each other')," the governing body said in a statement.
Sean O'Brien scores a try for the Lions against the All Blacks. Photo / Photosport
World Rugby choosing to intervene in an independent process was rare, but not unprecedented – but the only two other known occasions it has happened, were also related to the All Blacks.
In 2012 chief executive Brett Gosper tweeted he was concerned the judicial panel had been unduly lenient in punishing All Blacks loose forward Adam Thomson who had stamped on the head of a Scottish player.
A statement followed which read: "After careful consideration and having reviewed the full written decision in the Thomson case well within the permitted 72 hours of receipt, the IRB [now World Rugby] strongly believes that the sanction of one week is unduly lenient for this particular act of foul play and not aligned with the sanctions handed down in similar cases.
"The IRB firmly believes it is in the best interests of the game and its integrity to exercise its ability to appeal the Thomson decision."
Thomson's ban was doubled in the second review and while the outcome was no doubt a better reflection of the severity of his crime, it was the fact World Rugby had intervened in the process that had troubled the All Blacks.
Two months earlier Springbok prop Dean Greyling had almost decapitated All Blacks captain Richie McCaw in a wild and reckless cleanout where he led with his forearm and head.
Greyling was yellow carded and the fact Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer apologised publicly after the game and condemned his player in the strongest terms, was an indication that everyone could see it was an act of extreme foul play that deserved the toughest sanction.
Greyling was suspended for a week and World Rugby said nothing.
The third World Rugby intervention was in 2009, when, Wales coach Warren Gatland said after seeing his side lose 19-12, that referees were afraid of being involved in an upset.
That was based on his belief Daniel Carter should have been yellow carded in the 70th minute for a high tackle on the escaping halfback Martin Roberts. "It was a head-high tackle wasn't it," said Gatland. "A guy makes a break inside the 22 and you feel like if that was at the other end it's three points and a yellow card."
Richie McCaw hits Aurelien Rougerie in a big tackle during the RWC 2011 Final. Photo / Photosport
That night after the test, the All Blacks learned that a World Rugby official had insisted upon Carter being cited and what followed was a pantomime where he was suspended for one-week – missing the next test against Italy which he was never going to play anyway.
The All Blacks didn't particularly mind the outcome, but again the process felt wrong and manipulated.
Where they did mind the outcome was when French back Aurelien Rougerie was not cited after the 2011 World Cup final for eye-gouging McCaw.
World Rugby said the footage of the incident emerged too late to be considered, but the All Blacks have long felt that it was strange that there was never much of an appetite in the judicial world to appropriately sanction those who seemingly targeted the former All Blacks captain.
McCaw was the most influential player on the planet and most teams he encountered had a plan to deal with him – or in some cases, deal to him.
The list of unpunished crimes against McCaw was endless. Wales' Andy Powell wasn't carded or cited for a wild head high tackle in 2008; England's Dylan Hartley was let off for a forearm smash to the face; Australia's Quade Cooper got away with kneeing McCaw in the head; Greyling took a paltry one week for his clean-out and Rougerie didn't even have to face an investigation.
The All Blacks felt that World Rugby didn't mind letting opponents know that McCaw was fair game – that he could be targeted with impunity.
But of course what could they say publicly without facing ridicule? The All Blacks have, in their past, benefited from poor refereeing calls and inconsistent judicial outcomes.
Isolate the last decade, though – a period in which the All Blacks have dominated rugby in unprecedented fashion – and regardless of allegiance, the picture looks skewed.
