The #Finnocent Award for a preposterous ban
Only one winner here – Alesana Tuilagi’s five week ban (later reduced to two) for running was utter nonsense. Running over the top of people is what Tuilagi does on a rugby pitch. It was akin to banning Leigh Halfpenny for kicking goals, or Brad Barritt for pretending to be a centre, or Sam Burgess for pretending to be a centre, or Owen Farrell for pretending… you get the gist.
The Usain Bolt Award for services to sprinting
Craig Joubert set a new land speed record when exiting the pitch after his controversial refereeing of Australia vs Scotland in the quarter-final. Rumour has it there are still scorch marks in the Twickenham tunnel.
The Confirmation Bias Award for stubbornly ignoring the evidence
When Bath decided after a couple of months of trying Sam Burgess in the centre that, actually, it might not be the best position for him right now, and proceeded to play him at flanker – where he looked much more comfortable – you might have thought England would follow suit. Not so. They stubbornly crowbarred him into the midfield and, to the shock of absolutely no-one, it did not work out.
The Stephen Donald Award
We’re not sure if Joe Moody was enjoying a fishing holiday a la Stephen Donald in 2011, but once again the All Blacks provided a brilliant story with the prop landing in England three days before the quarter-final, only to end up starting in the final. And he threw one of the offloads of the World Cup in his first game. Awesome.
The Randle Patrick McMurphy award for being completely and utterly off your rocker
Diego Maradona was one of the more high profile guests at the tournament – and a very welcome one at that. He seems to have lost none of the eccentricity that made him such an entertaining football manager, and the scenes in the dressing room after Argentina’s win over Tonga proved he is still a complete madman. Never change, Diego.
Video credit: BUZZ
The Steve Walsh Award for stealing the limelight
It was jolly selfish of Sonny Bill Williams to give his medal away to a youngster that had just been creamed by a security guard, wasn’t it? It’s all ‘me, me, me’ with that man – no respect for the retiring greats like Carter and Smith, who inhumanely decided to keep their medals.
The Time Traveller Award for taking rugby back to the dark ages
While the rest of the world was proving that the playmaker was king, England coaches Stuart Lancaster and Andy Farrell decided, for the biggest game of their tenure to date, to pick the most one dimensional centre partnership since… well, since they partnered Farrell and Barritt there last autumn (a decision which spawned the below tweet – still one of my favourite ever). Burgess and Barritt was about as subtle a midfield as a punch to the face.
@bloodandmud Walking through Trafalgar Square this morning and saw Farrell and Barritt practising for Saturday. pic.twitter.com/BMIV7Rukdm
— Matt (@dinoma) November 20, 2014
The ‘Plus ça change…’ Award
Unsurprisingly, this goes to France. Four years ago the players allegedly overthrew coach Marc Lievremont after the group stages, and they came within a point of beating New Zealand in the final. This time, faced with the same opposition in the quarter-finals, there were rumours they did the same thing with Philippe Saint-André. The result was a touch different, however, as they shipped 60 points and left with their tails between their legs. The one solace for England fans after this tournament is that they are not the biggest laughing stock in the Northern Hemisphere.
Got any awards of your own? Stick them in the comments section below!
Photo by: Patrick Khachfe / Onside Images
I know this isn’t serious….
But Burgess at centre didn’t not work either. Whilst he wasn’t an effective sub against Australia, taking him off against Wales had a negative impact!
The #HOWTODESTROYAGREATGAME Award to the RWC organisers for humiliating Joubert after his error instead of supporting him.
The James So’oialo award for Overfamiliarity
This award goes to one of the worst commentators on the planet, ITV’s ever popular Nick Mullins who in every Fiji game he commented on seemed to see it fit to point out that Nemani Nadolo bared a certain resemblance to a chap called Jonah Lomu.
So much so Jonah has taken out a restraining order preventing Nick from being in the same hemisphere as him (the rest of us are not so lucky), Nick mentioned Jonah on such a regular basis the worry was that he had turned into Matt Damon from Team America only having the ability to mention the great man’s name.
Honourable mentions:
Nick Mullins – Informing the viewing public on a players club every time they touched the ball as if he were revising for his Rugby Union GCSE.
Nick Mullins – Informing the viewing public at least 20 times that home based part-time Canadian players earn $400 odd a month giving you the feeling he was born too late to help the Suffragette movement.
Pascal Gauzere – the French referee felt so sorry for The USA during their 64-0 drubbing at the hands of South Africa he felt like he should help them out in the ruck.
Jeremy Beadle award to whichever producers chose to film parts of Heineke Meyer’s 80min long nervous breakdowns.
The Horlicks award for sending me to sleep – Geordan Murphy. Seriously how can such a wonderful player be so soul crushingly dull as a commentator?
Surely something for that girl singing (for want of a better word) during the advert breaks.
The “At least we don’t have to hear that again” award, or something.
Agreed and or swap her with the ‘comedian’ training with Johnson and co !
So agree with this. Has to be “Worst sung tag line in History” award. She sounded like a vomiting sheep with laryngitis. The thought that she is actually going to be a judge on “The Voice” this year and might actually influence a whole generation of imitators is insupportable!
The “Wish You Were Here” award is a four way tie between Dylan Hartley, Steffon Armitage, Manu Tuilagi and Luther Burrell.
The “Get Off My Screen, You Insufferable Bore” award is a two-way tie between John Inverdale and Clive Woodward.
The “Storm In A Teacup” award before the biggest kerfuffle made over what turns out to be nothing goes to the Two Hookers Scandal (not as fun as it sounds) before the World Cup.
The “16th Man Award” for extraordinary contribution from off the pitch goes to Bob Dwyer (honourable mention to Jonathan Kaplan) for his comments on Joe Marler which evidently effected Roman Poite’s refereeing of the scrum in the England Vs Australia match.
The Lenor award goes to Dan Biggar, see what happens when you wash your jersey without it….
The St Johns Ambulance award goes to Wales for the most crushing injury list
The Dutch Dam award goes to Sturat Lancaster for completely crumbling under the pressure
The thanks for stopping by award goes to Mariano Galarza the shortest world cup playing a total of 57 minutes on day 3 before picking up a 9 week ban and missing the rest of the tournament(Honorable mention for Waisake Naholo playing 53 minutes before proving that you really can’t fully recover from a broken leg just by rubbing some herbs on it)