IRB rules under fire at Rugby World Cup

The action's been fast and furious on the pitch but just as active and debatable off it in the disciplinary meeting rooms at the Rugby World Cup. The International Rugby Board (IRB) has cracked down, rubbing out one player for 15 weeks for eye gouging, banning Samoa's Eliota Fuimaono Sapolu from playing rugby indefinitely for calling a referee a racist and even fining players for wearing 'illegal' mouthguards. Italy hooker Leonardo Ghiraldini will be out of rugby until January 17, just weeks before the kick-off of next season's Six Nations after being found guilty of eye gouging Ireland prop Cian Healy during the teams' decisive World Cup pool match last weekend. The IRB have protocols in place for a maximum sanction of a three year ban for making contact with the eye but instead reduced Ghiraldini's suspension to 15 weeks for his "previously unblemished record" But while the IRB Judicial Officers were somewhat lenient with Ghiraldini, they came down hard on Samoa centre Fuimaono Sapolu for his Twitter rant at Welsh referee Nigel Owens following his team's World Cup exit last Friday. Fuimaono Sapolu, who at last count had around 7,400 Twitter followers, had earlier got into the IRB's bad books when he tweeted that tournament organisers were guilty of "slavery" for the way they treated teams like Samoa. Fuimaono Sapolu was forced to apologise for comparing the World Cup to "slavery" and even the "holocaust" after Samoa had only a few days to prepare for their key game against Wales, which they lost. But he went a step too far with his Twitter outburst after Samoa's contentious 13-5 loss to the Springboks which ended Samoa's World Cup quarter-final hopes. He claimed Samoa was the victim of a conspiracy and directed fire at Owens. "I can understand the hate!! Haha good luck u racist biased prick," tweeted the 30-year-old Fuimaono Sapolu. "Get s.a (South Africa) into next round. The plan was obvious. Can't wait 2 meet irb members in public," he added. Officials threw the book at the uncontrite Samoan, who did not attend the initial judiciary hearing, and provisionally suspended him from playing rugby until another hearing on October 15. The IRB were criticised as being over the top in their crackdown on players wearing illegal mouthguards and fined brothers Alesana Tuilagi (Samoa) and Manu Tuilagi (England) $NZ10,000 ($7,500) each. The Tuilagi brothers wore unapproved branded mouthguards during the tournament, breaching the event's terms of participation. OPRO Mouthguards, the British company at fault, said it would pay the players' fines, and supply any Rugby World Cup players unbranded replacements. It denied accusations of ambush marketing. The rugby governing body also got unwelcome publicity for its directive on Bible passages written on players' wrist strapping. Words written on the tape must be approved by the IRB in advance according to the rules issued to the eight remaining teams in the Rugby World Cup to ensure "there are no offensive or political statements." Rugby World Cup tournament director Kit McConnell said all teams were treated the same. "We don't want to fine teams, we want to work with them to avoid issues and this has worked in the vast majority of cases," McConnell said. "Unfortunately, in a very small number of cases, despite all of the discussions and the warnings, there have been some breaches. "In those cases, we have treated each team exactly the same way." But amid all the crackdowns on players' Twitter activities and illegal gumshields, England avoided sanctions from the IRB by suspending coaches Dave Alred and Paul Stridgeon for a match, because they switched the ball during placekicks against Romania. As one local sports radio compere put it: "So England swap the ball for conversions and the IRB does nothing. Samoa wear the wrong brand of mouthguard and get fined 10k. Incredible."