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by Our Sports Desk
WORLD CUP organisers will change the way the man of the match is decided in time for the quarter-finals after Joe Launchbury’s “embarrassing” award in the game that saw England dumped out of the tournament.
It was among the 24-year-old’s finest performances in an England jersey, but Bernard Foley and David Pocock were outstanding for the Wallabies and would have been worthier recipients.
Launchbury was forced to give a pitch-side interview and handed a trophy moments after the hosts were routed.
Every bit as baffling was Uruguay’s Agustin Ormaechea scoring a try against Fiji, being named man of the match and then receiving his marching orders after being sent off — all in the space of eight minutes.
The existing voting system sees a shortlist of three players selected by the tournament’s world feed radio early in the second half before fans choose their preferred choice on social media.
“There is a rethink happening because there have been a few challenges,” head of Rugby World Cup Alan Gilpin said.
“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’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.”
Rugby bosses were also forced to defend the safety record of the competition yesterday.
World Rugby insisted that the injury levels at England 2015 were not “extraordinary in any way.”
The 21 withdrawals in the group stages means more have been forced out than in all rounds of the 2011 cup when injury claimed 19 players.
But both figures are lower than eight years ago when 37 were forced home early.
World Rugby chief executive Brett Gosper insisted that the high-profile nature of the games that have seen injuries — notably England v Wales and Ireland v France — had led to an inaccurate impression that the injury rate was up.
“Let’s wait until the tournament is over before doing a full analysis. We want to make sure it’s evidence-based rather than emotionally based because player welfare is our number one priority,” he said.
