Wallabies forward Radike Samo has come to the defence of two fans who dressed in blackface to "pay tribute to him" at Saturday night's final Tri-Nations match in Brisbane.

The two Qantas competition winners became embroiled in a public furore after the airline posted a photograph of them wearing black wigs and covered in black face paint outside Suncorp Stadium on social networking site Twitter.

Radike

Qantas was forced to withdraw the photograph from the site almost immediately and issue a nationwide apology after some Twitter users took offence.

The fans had won platinum tickets to the match from the Wallabies sponsor after promising to dress as their favourite player. The airline said it did not know the men planned to dress as Samo.