Wynne Gray: Ignore Rules Brigade needs to step up over final's eye gouging travesty

IRB Deputy Chairman Bill Beaumont. Photo / Getty Images

Opinion

Almost three weeks have elapsed since the World Cup final. Granted, it's not a great deal of time, even for such a progressive organisation as the International Rugby Board, to accept they messed up in the wake of the tournament conclusion.

They did have other critical issues to sort out, like shifting the election of their next chairman from Auckland to the UK then on to Los Angeles next month. Sounds like Disneyland is a perfect setting.

Most IRB functionaries seem to operate in that sort of never-never land.

Send all the councillors to Space Mountain and scare the hell out of them to make some decisions when they take their troupe to LA.

There are no guarantees they will decide Bernard Lapasset should continue as chairman or Bill Beaumont should take over. Not the way they did business during the World Cup, anyway.

They were up to their cufflinks swanning about New Zealand on crucial matters like getting their suits tailored, sorting out appropriate restaurant venues and making sure their 4WD transport had a minimum number of kilometres on the clock.

They were to elect their chairman at the tournament but then, in the last week and with the vote split, they chose to defer the decision.

Presumably they did not want to detract from the World Cup. Either that or they did not want to risk altering the chairman's editorial in the last few match programmes and the reception committee on the finals dais. But back to their gaffe in the final.

The IRB had already made plenty of petty rulings, like fining sides substantial amounts for mistakes and trying to keep those decisions quiet.

Perhaps they were gun-shy after referee Alain Rolland, correctly under the rules he was given for the tournament, sent off Wales captain Sam Warburton for an illegal tackle in the semifinal.

However, any citing commissioner worth his match fees who had been watching and listening closely to the televised match coverage would have known something was amiss with All Black skipper Richie McCaw in the final.

Australian Scott Nowland had that job, it was his duty to monitor anything awry in the final.

The IRB excused their man, saying new footage had only come to their attention once the 36-hour citing window had expired.

And gravel sandwiches are my favourite form of tucker.

There was a whiff about the incident after the final and the next day. Did Nowland revisit the footage or jump on a plane like a hasty South African citing official did in 2005 after Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu ended Brian O'Driscoll's Lions tour in Christchurch?

How about the IRB scrap the time limit on citing because their glacial pace of inquiry has been a joke.

Aurelien Rougerie escaped an inquiry which the IRB acknowledged when they noted some footage "indicated a possible act of foul play" in the All Blacks' 8-7 final victory.

If the International Relics Board are true to their latest statement that they "take all acts of foul play seriously", then they need to up their game.