TIPPING POINT:REMEMBER DORA Ratjen, the German athlete who competed in the 1936 Olympics in the high jump? Not much of a story really, except for one thing: Dora was actually Hermann. Either short of friends or terrifyingly ambitious, Herr Hermann was coerced by the Hitler Youth into tightly binding his genitals and competing against women.

For some people it may have started out with hiding in the bushes while the rest of the team were running warm up laps. For others it was catching a ride during the pre-season road run that happened to have a two-mile stretch along the route of the local bus.

Cheating in sport has always been fun.

From the moment the contract was signed several months before the 1964 heavyweight bout between Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) and Sonny Liston, Ali began a campaign that was nothing less than an attempt to destroy Liston’s sanity.

He first started showing up at sparring sessions to taunt Liston, who was not a sophisticated man and had spent much of his life in prison. He then followed the former champion to a casino and mocked him for losing a previous fight, an act that nearly resulted in a brawl on the casino floor. Ali was also waiting at a Miami airport, to ambush Liston with his well-rehearsed doggerel.

There was more. He showed up at Liston’s training headquarters with a bus full of girls and arrived at the fighter’s house in the middle of the night, taking the stunt from straightforward harassment into stalker territory. Just some fun on Ali’s part. Violating the rules, bending the regulations? Never.

Ali won the fight before accusing Liston’s corner of attempted cheating.

During the recent Rugby World Cup Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu tweeted after Samoa lost to Wales in their pool match. Like many of the second-tier countries in the tournament, the Samoan player had good reason for vile humour. Sapolu believed that he and his team were being shafted.

“Ok, it’s obvious the IRB are unjust. Wales get 7 days, we get 3. Unfair treatment, like slavery, like the holocaust, like apartheid.”

Sapolu subsequently apologised for the inappropriate references. Crikey, they were a bit weren’t they? But he hadn’t finished. His Twitter account was humming and the voice still shook with anger.

“You can’t get punished for speaking out against injustice. That would be unjust. Anyone can tackle a man. Try tackling injustice.”

The Jesuits might argue that injustice is not cheating, whereas swapping the kicking ball for a one better suited to the sweet swing of Jonny Wilkinson’s boot is. On that RWC occasion, kicking coach Dave Alred and conditioning coach Paul Stridgeon took the hit from the RFU and, having been found guilty of being in contravention of both the laws and spirit of the game were . . . wait for it . . . banned from the touchline for the next match. RWC Ltd were happy.

Shamefully, few players or other nations came out in support of Sapolu’s sentiment, although given the overwrought language he used that was understandable. But the pretence continued on as if the World Cup pool roster of matches had somehow been randomly drawn out of a hat and that the weaker nations were by happenstance handed a recipe for injury and beatings.

England played all of their RWC pool matches between September 10th and October 1st, or over the course of 21 days. Australia had 20 days to play their complement of games and New Zealand 23 days for their pool matches between September 9th and October 2nd. In their final match of that opening stanza of games the All Blacks put 79 points on the pesky Canadians.

Samoa’s lot was four matches in 16 days. Namibia’s schedule was the same, four Test matches in 16 days, while Romania escaped with 18 days for completion of all their pool matches, Japan 17 days.

There were seven teams that played consecutive games with only three clear days between them; Canada, Georgia, Namibia, Romania, Samoa, Scotland and the USA. All of those countries had a ranking outside the top eight in the world.

Canada coach Kieran Crowley said it made him laugh that he and his players had a four-day turnaround and the stronger countries had seven- and eight-day turnarounds. Crowley made his views known after they had beaten Tonga on September 14th and before they played France on September 18th. Tonga had been forced to make 11 changes for the game against Canada after putting their bodies on the line against New Zealand in the first match.

But that’s not cheating is it? Arranging the RWC match schedule to explicitly favour those teams with most members on the controlling and venerable IRB is not what rugby calls cheating. It’s called looking after their own and it’s surely a coincidence that the number of representatives from Argentina, Canada, Fiji, Georgia, Japan, Namibia, Romania, Russia, Samoa, Tonga and the USA on the 10-man executive committee of the IRB is zero.

Help us out here but maybe, just maybe, it was all a huge coincidence that the Tri-Nations and Six Nations teams were given the best pool draws. If that’s the case and maybe, just maybe it is, then coincidence has a terrible way of repeating itself because in the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France, the dice remarkably fell in favour of . . . any ideas . . . the top-tier teams! England had 20 days to complete their pool schedule in 2007, while Australia and New Zealand had 21 days each. The little lads like Fiji, Samoa and Romania had 17 days each.

More coincidences: In New Zealand 2011, the number of referees from Argentina, Canada, Fiji, Georgia, Japan, Namibia, Romania, Russia, Samoa, Tonga and the USA was zero.

One of the curious aspects here is that Rugby Inc doesn’t even blink in the face of the accusatory stares. Rugby Inc, once the spectators arrive and the broadcast deals have been done and the viewing figures go up, simply carries on with that elevated sense of who’s boss.

Second tier in an international rugby sense is a caste system, the place where the make-up-the-numbers teams should understand that the size of their allowance is the permission to enter. The real possibility of downsizing the tournament hangs there, an ever present reminder that indifference to the lack of fair play is the IRB’s privilege.

Rugby Inc remains dispassionately aloof to any view that limited recovery time for the weaker teams is an attack on the spirit of equality and, actually, an affront to the dignity of the World Cup competition. Even in racing they handicap the fast horses.

The IRB are not Dora Ratjen. But they have misplaced an important ethical aspect of their tournament. And you may call that whatever you want. For the future, though, Herr Hermann’s ruse could be applied. Like the fake woman perhaps the IRB should tightly bind their genitals for a couple of years and, well, see what happens for the pool stage matches in England 2015.