Young Counties Manukau referee Jessica Beard will join the NZ Rugby Union Referee Academy next year.
Given the furore following refereeing decisions at the recent World Cup, perhaps what is needed is more women.
Many would say that they cannot make it worse.
Wales captain Sam Warburton was sent off by Irish referee Allain Rolland in the first world cup semi-final. From that moment, it felt like France would win because only 20 minutes had passed in the match and good teams tend to beat opponents when they have a numeric playing advantage.
But it went to the wire and despite being a man down, Wales dominated possession, scored a try and could have won the match in the dying minutes.
South African rugby fans are claiming the most hard done by moniker at this world cup after having been tipped out by Australia in what they see as controversial circumstances but Wales may have a stronger case.
Wales were denied 3 points (and hence lost by 2) when a penalty that looked to have gone over was ruled out by Referee Wayne Barnes and his linesmen in their first round match against South Africa. Then captain Warburton was sent off after 20 minutes for a tackle that did not appear to have been made with malice.
My Points on the incident
The general concensus seems to be that a yellow card was all that was needed and that a red card effectively ruined the contest but Wales rallied and the match was a nail-biter.
I guess you’ve got to go back through every potentially suspicious tackle of this nature during the world cup to assess whether Rolland was consistent with his application of the law.
Bottom Line: Lifting a player in the tackle is a very risky thing to do, especially when the legs are higher than the torso.
It’s a bit like touching a player when they are in the air at re-starts, lineouts and kick reception – penalties are given more often than not, regardless of the intent or force of contact.
However rulings are not so consistent with lifted tackles and Warburton has paid the price of being the example.
It’s the second controversial world cup match in a row after South Africa’s exit at the hands of Australia.
All the pressure is now on South Africa’s Craig Joubert when he adjudicates New Zealand v Australia tonight.
Joubert has been the pick of the refs up to this point and is in line for the final so let’s hope he has a good match.
Tags: Allain Rolland, Sam WarburtonThere’s been plenty of criticism and bad feeling about the Kiwi ref.
[A record 3,500 people visiting this site the 3 days after the game as rugby fans look for reports]
I’ve certainly not held back when I think Lawrence has had a crap performance and this was one of his worst!
He comes from my region (Tauranga, Bay of Plenty) and I had him referee my club matches back in the mid 90s when he was coming through the refereeing ranks.
I think his school teacher on-field manner got to me as much as some of the bad tendencies he had as a ref like picking on one team for periods of time and having no clue at the scrum.
For me, Lawrence made his first mistake in this match on the 2:26 mark when he ruled Australia had knocked the ball on when it looked like they had not.
It seemed like his second blunder was also against Australia when no action was taken when JP Peterson took a flyer in the charge down of James O’Connor’s conversion.
It then looked like experienced South African lock Victor Matfield got away with diving over the top of a ruck on the 18:30 mark but then the calls – or more accurately ‘no calls’ – seemed to stack up against the Springboks.
Heinrich Brussow left the field with an injury after a hint of a cheap shot at a ruck by an Australian and David Pockock cheated like hell from there on and got away with it. Not letting tackled players go, playing the ball on the ground and suspect tactics slowing down the ball in contact.
This is the job of an openside flanker for sure but the job of a referee is to apply the rule book and this didn’t happen in this particular aspect of the game and the Springboks suffered.
South Africa are not a side to allow too many players to mess with their ball. They have the most ferocious clear out of any team in world rugby. Their forwards have incredible upper body strength and there’s plenty of nous there as well in Matfield, Burger and Smit.
The Springbok defence in tight is stoic and their forwards go on marauding pick and gos that have opponents backpedaling at a rate of knots. They seems unstoppable at these times.
But the Springboks did not give Pocock the attention he deserved. They could have run at him forcing the Australian number 7 to make tackles rather than be the first man to the breakdown. They could have set their targets earlier in the contact, coming up a little short to ensure quick ball rather than going as far as the runner could and rely on getting defenders away.
Despite the warning from the Australian media: “Australians should anticipate a penalty-fest come Sunday” – Lawrence only blew 10 penalties in the match (6-4 South Africa).
I personally enjoy rugby way more when there are less penalties rather than more but South Africans will argue that with all the possession they had, the penalty count should have been higher in their favour, especially given the indiscretions of Pocock at the breakdown.
It sux when a referee’s call (or general performance) ruins a match.
Tags: David Pocock, Heinrich Bruwssow, Springboks, WallabiesAthletic England lock Courtney Lawes received a 2-match ban for sliding in with his knees into Argentine Hooker Mario Ledesma in their opening world cup match in Dunedin.
This seems fair to me.
Firstly, the tackle on Argentine centre Gonzalo Tiesi was not late in terms of the rules - Lawes was clearly committed and even in slow motion it was only just late. The judicial ruling did not appear to penalise Lawes in any way for this – which was right.
It was a great hit from a committed defender.
If an All Black manages a hit like that in this competition, I’ll be very happy.
Tiesi’s injury is a shame because we want all teams to be at full strength when they want/need to be – it’s a tough sport.
The knee shot did seem a little cheap although Lawes has got nothing on ex-All Black Richard Loe in that department. Cue the late knose-breaking forearm shot he put on Australia’s Paul Carozza in the second Bledisloe Cup test of 1992.
The argument for the defense was that Lawes was committed to a more targetted confrontation and pulled out, sliding instead. Unfortunately the collision that resulted made it look worse because Ledesma was at the time lying on the grass prone from the tackle that took him down.
Fair enough. No real intention, no malice, just a bit reckless (and potentially injurous) so 2 games off.
There would have been an issue had it been any longer. This was not one of Bryce Lawrence’s better matches with the whistle and England bore the brunt of the school teacher’s wrath for a period during the match. They only had to think of doing something illegal and Lawrence was onto them in a flash.
[Im my opinion, Lawrence has never rid his game of the tendencey to place more focus on one team's perceived indiscretions when they get his ire. I felt he ruined the second Lions v South Africa test with his ridiculous reading of the scrum, unfairly singling out Phil Vickery.
The approach to club matches in the Bay of Plenty back in the days when Lawrence was reffing at that level was 'Don't piss him off coz it will come back to us in spades!']
To his credit, Lawrence did not blow the Lawes tackle on Tiesi when others might have.
Lawes will miss Georgia and Romania – matches he may not have been chosen to play in anyway.
England will have their abrasive forward for the Scotland clash at Eden Park. Lawes will get another game under his belt going into the quarter finals where he will be needed.
Tags: Bryce Lawrence, Courtney LawesPurists will say ‘Never! human error is part of the game’.
The problem is that technology can show us otherwise. Cricket umpires can be corrected by technology that traces the ball’s trajectory and says whether it was going to hit the wickets or not. The game can continue its natural course because a better decision is available.
Statistics, visual indicators of ball trajectories, tracking of a single player through dedicated cameras, split screens, slow motion replays of line calls, text to big screen, mobile companion applications and alternative commentaries – they are all part of the modern sports entertainment package.
And I don’t mind paying for it.
The benefits
It throws the rest of the match from that point into a haze of contestability – epsecially when the match is a close affair and the result would have been different.
Sports entertainment costs money. Professional rugby in New Zealand wouldn’t exist without Television rights and match tickets are expensive for the world’s premier rugby event.
I was at the Cake Tin in Wellington for the Wales v Springbok first round match last night.
The rain had stopped, the ground was in good nick and 30,000+ turned out for the first game in the capital.
For the record I am no hater of Wayne Barnes I think the guy is quite a good ref (http://craprefs.com/international-rugby/470/).
I also think that apart from the big one, he had a good game.
One (far from objective) barometer of how a referee is doing is how conscious you are of him being there and I wasn’t particularly conscious of Wayne Barnes last night.
The game flowed nicely, teams were given the opportunity to compete with the ball at the breakdown, indescretions were penalised and both teams generally adhered to the way things were being managed.
There was consistency.
(Although Barnes could have referred to the TMB) It was linesmen Vinny Munro and George Clancy whole ruled on the kick.
I also liked the way that Wayne Barnes did not use his whistle to establish control.
Contrast Barnes performance with that of New Zealand’s Bryce Lawrence who gave his whistle a real working over in England’s opening match against Argentina in Dunedin on Saturday.
Lawrence seems to get personal, finding fault in a great many aspects of one team’s play for periods of time.
[I thought England cheated a bit and credit where it's due, Courtney Lawes tackle wasn't late and the knee shot was probably not obvious at first glance]
Even Allain Rouland – normally very chilled in the hot seat – seemed keen to get the cobwebs out of his whistle when he refereed the Australia v Italy tussle on Sunday.
Anyway, back to the dilemma of getting something so significant, so wrong.
Where there is so much at stake, there has got to be a way to rectify bad calls.
What is the TMO doing during the match if not looking at footage?
If a kick at goal looks close, it should be reviewed. If the game is a bog one (club semi-final, final, world cup match), there should be additional technology available to assist. The kind of technology that is used in cricket, baseball and yaughting to track trajectories.
If something like a kick at goal has been wrongly denied, then they should correct it, award points accordingly and let everybody know at the next break in play.
This is what happens in cricket when a mistake is uncovered. A shot is given 4 instead of 6, the matter is discovered and the scoreboard is changed and all parties notified.
Why is rugby so slow to adapt?
The real cost
If you are going to make so much money out of a rugby competition then bloody-well spend some of it on getting things like this right.
Tags: George Clancy, Vinny Munro, Wayne BarnesWayne Barnes let the game flow. He allowed defensive teams an opportunity at the ball in tackles and allowed attacking teams time to recycle their own. He required tacklers to release the tackled player and he did not use the whistle to establish his presence like so many referees do in a high intensity international.
The only obvious issue was the TMO’s ‘inconclusive’ call that lead to a Wallaby scrum.
There was a knee at a ruck but that appears to have been sorted by the citing & judicial process.
Bottom line: Wayne Barnes is ready for the World Cup and is a real prospect to adjudicate the final
Tags: Wayne BarnesLast week it was Stu Dickinson and his touch judges, this week it was Keith Brown and his.
New Zealand referee, Keith Brown
It’s the calls that swing a game that we don’t want to see and unfortunately that’s what we got at the Cake Tin in Wellington.
Brown missed a blatant forward pass by Ma’a Nonu and instead of a scrum to the Lions, the Hurricanes were awarded and kicked a penalty to reduce the deficit to 2 points and gain second half momentum after being 5 points behind at the break.
It gave the Hurricanes impetus at the critical period just after half time. They scored 17 points from tries to Nonu and Hosea Gear and a penalty to Cruden.
Another tough call came when a Lions defender was penalized 5 out from his own line for an illegal steal but it looked very similar to the match-turning call by Stu Dickinson last week when Richie McCaw was penalized and the Reds won the game with the penalty.
Tue bad calls gave the home side an unfair boost that they did not deserve bit took full advantage of.
The Lions finished strongly scoring 2 tries in the last 10 minutes but it was too little too late.
It would be a stretch to say that the Hurricanes were looking like they would have scored that many points in the post half time period without the help they got from Keith Brown.
Tags: Keith Brown1. James Broadhurst playing the ball on the ground [No call]
The Hurricanes scored their first try after an attack was stopped short of the line. Lock Broadhurst stretched out for the line but came up short. He grounded the ball 1 metre short of the line and when he realised, he then pulled it back to recycle. This should have been a penalty to the Chiefs.
Instead, John Schwalger scored from the next play.
Effect: 7 points
2. Scott Waldrom’s fair steal penalised for killing the ball
Referee Jonker did not see Waldrom fairly and cleanly steal the ball in the tackle and proceeded to penalise the Chiefs for an indiscretion that took place after they had gained possession – bad call!
Effect: Cruden kicks the penalty – 3 points
3. Tyson Keats try
Keats appeared to be short of the line when Marius Jonker went upstairs to Garret Williamson.
Jonker was confident that a try had been scored and Williamson saw no reason to doubt.
Effect: 5 points
4. Another fair steal penalised (not releasing the tackled player)
Jonker claimed that ‘part of his knee was touching the ground’ – a pedantic call at best. He ball was nowhere near the ground when the Hurricanes tackler ripped it away.
Result: Penalty to the Hurricanes and less time for the Chiefs to claw their way back from the effect of the previous 3 crap calls.
Tags: Chiefs, Hurricanes, Marius JonkerAustralian coach Robbie Deans is an astute operator. His scrum has been under extreme pressure during their European tour and he has been on the offensive to try and deflect attention but it seems his pleas for leniency from referees hasn’t worked.
Claims of unfair treatment were lost on Bryce Lawrence
Prop Ben Robinson was sin-binned in the first 20 minutes as the Australian scrum was going backwards and Lawrence looked to attribute responsibility.
Deans had tried to blame everyone else for the problem.
But veteran Australian prop Bill Young has had enough. Whinging is not the Australian way. He would prefer that they sort it out in time for the World Cup and Australian fans might agree.
Australia have stars in every other area of their game:
I do not believe that a team needs a great front row to win a World Cup. New Zealand were better focusing their efforts and money on Sonny-Bill Williams than they were on Karl Hayman.
But where a weak front row might count against a team is in the World Cup finals where competition will be fierce and scrum transgressions will be punished.
Tags: Ben Robinson, Bryce Lawrence, Robbie DeansBoth were obvious from the TV and both went unpunished so let’s leave it at that.
It’s not good to have one side’s supporters feeling hard done by after a test match. Better that the matter be settled on the field and the better team winning.
The All Blacks were very lucky in 2009. The 12-19 result may have been different had the officials sin-binned Carter for a swinging arm in his cover tackle. It’s what he deserved and Wales were left feeling they had been done a great injustice.
Earlier in this tour New Zealand got away lightly from Kevin Mealamu’s headbutt against England which would have done nothing to appease Irish emotions after the 2005 spare tackle or Brian O’Driscoll during the Lions Tour.
Powell may or may not be cited for his high shot on Ricthie McCaw towards the end of the match. There dd not appear to be any ill effects. Wales certainly did not get any gain from the act.
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