Rugby World Cup suits ditch man-of-the-match
Rugby World Cup suits ditch man-of-the-match Twitter vote after Joe Launchbury nod in Wallabies romp
Stephen Wilson
The Daily Telegraph
October 13, 2015 10:05AM
Call it the Joe Launchbury effect. Or the Bernard Foley fail. After some odd, strange and downright perplexing awards for the man-of-the-match at the Rugby World Cup so far, suitably red-faced organisers have finally conceded a rethink is required.
Alarm bells rang after England’s Launchbury won what even he termed an ‘embarrassing’ award in the 33-13 hammering by Australia — when Bernard Foley had scored 28 points in a near faultless display.
Elsewhere, Uruguay’s Agustin Ormaechea was sent off minutes after being named the contest’s most outstanding individual in his game against Fiji.
The problem centres on a voting system that selects candidates long before the business end of the match has come in to view. And then compounds that flawed system by giving the final say to that ever reliable arbiter of value and worth: Twitter.
In the group stages a shortlist of three players were selected by the tournament’s world feed radio early in the second half, before fans choose their preferred choice on social media.
And so the wisdom of crowds (made up of more Englishmen than Australians) thus handed Launchbury the dubious honour of being recorded as the best player on the pitch as Foley pulled the strings in an epic Wallabies win.
However, there will a new system for the quarter-finals starting this weekend.
“There is a rethink happening because there have been a few challenges,” head of Rugby World Cup Alan Gilpin said with measured understatement and unconvincing management speak (not an abject failure in design and implementation, you understand, just “challenges”).
“Any man-of-the-match scenario where you have a public vote and that public vote takes place at a particular point in the game leads to some anomalies.
“We saw that with the Uruguay player who received a red card shortly after being named man of the match and of course the Launchbury situation.
“We’re looking at that now before the knockout stage and the plan is for the change to be made. We’re adjusting the timing and the way the voting takes place.”
Translation: we made a right mess of it and will rip it up and start again to avoid any more ridiculous stuff ups.
http://www.foxsports.com.au/rugby/ru...-1227567096600
