Bob Dwyer has gone mad…
This guy was one of the Rugby greats. He’s now got a serious case of All Black paranoia and is generating conspiracy theories at an alarming rate. The latest – that the All Blacks are getting the benefit of referees decision — is ridiculous.
First, he seems to forget that there is often not a direct correlation between penalties and yellow cards. A yellow card for violence, for instance, is an offense not predicted by penalties.
Second, the data is skewed by not associating penalties with repeated warnings – one of the Australian’s yellow cards was for repeated warnings. If NZ had offended next it would have been theirs.
Third, if you want to play the data game, throw in post game suspensions and correlate that to yellow cards – what you discover is that both Sth Africa and Australia were the most egregious offenders in the game and the cards were warranted.
In short, the conclusion presented is woefully short on analysis, let along statistical relevance, and coupled with a fair degree of paranoia and sensationalism.
It ignores one simple fact. Both teams were beaten by the better side.
