Cheika, whose team face Argentina in the semi-finals, was aghast that the governing body had hung its own official out to dry and also believes that a dangerous precedent may have been set.
"I would have liked my mates to back me up a little bit more," Cheika said. "I genuinely feel for him - it's so unfair. I have never seen this -before. I am not sure why the decision had to be publicly reviewed and put out there. I really hope his fellow referees stand by him. The fact that I'm not allowed to say much about it says it all.
"It's a bit surprising, because no other decision in the tournament has been reviewed."
O'Shea also makes the point that World Rugby has succeeded only in undermining its own doctrine of demanding respect towards officials. "If a club director of rugby had said what World Rugby have just said we would get fined, no doubt in my mind," O'Shea said. "You cannot say what they said, you are not to supposed to talk about what the referee does in any way, shape or form. That has stunned me that they have done that.
"I will give you an analogy. I don't go out with the lads because if trouble happens when the lads are out and I am there, how can I discipline them? How can a person be disciplined for speaking out about a referee when they have basically hung a referee out to dry?
"Why do they need to justify it? They didn't. I know it was the quarter-final of the World Cup. There were other things that happened that maybe they needed to look at and discuss but just because there is a baying crowd, doesn't mean you have to answer a question that doesn't do the game any good."
World Rugby's move is not without precedent. In 2013, it said that Romain Poite, the French referee, was "incorrect" to issue the first of two yellow cards to Bismarck Du Plessis, the South Africa hooker, for his tackle on Dan Carter.
The difference was that Joubert's mistake became apparent only with the benefit of multiple angles of slow-motion replays and careful study of the law book. In real time, he had only 0.4 of a second to make his mind up taking in a host of factors.
Joubert becomes the latest official to face the kangaroo court of public opinion. In 2003 it was Andre Watson for repeatedly penalising England's scrum in the World Cup final; in 2007 it was Wayne Barnes for missing a forward pass that led to a French try against New Zealand; at the 2011 tournament it was Bryce Lawrence's interpretation of the breakdown in the quarter-final between Australia and New Zealand.
In the age of social media, the chorus of criticism is that much more shrill and aggressive. Joubert even came in for criticism in Parliament yesterday. Michael Gove, the Edinburgh-born Justice Secretary, described the penalty decision as "perhaps the greatest injustice we have seen on British soil since the Bloody Assizes" - when dozens of people were sentenced to death in 1685 for rebelling against King James II.
Joubert has not been seen in public since his controversial decision, but Paul Dobson, the former South African referee who is a close confidant of his, said that he would deal with being at the eye of the storm.
"His father, Des, was a very good referee who died young," Dobson said. "Craig himself has an honours degree in commerce and was in banking before he became a referee. He will not be crushed by this. He is resilient but what he is experiencing at the moment is unacceptable. Every referee makes mistakes because he is human. The criticism he has faced his base and obscene."
