Now-retired top referee Wayne Barnes has fired back at Sir Graham Henry, Richie McCaw and All Blacks fans in his just-released autobiography, Throwing the Book. Photo / Getty Images
English referee Wayne Barnes has let rip at the brains trust of the 2007 All Blacks and the side’s fans who labelled him Public Enemy No 1 in the aftermath of the side’s Rugby World Cup Cardiff calamity.
Barnes – who called time on his record-breaking career days after refereeing this year’s World Cup final – has opened up fully for the first time on the painful aftermath of the All Blacks’ loss to France in the 2007 World Cup quarter-final.
He was widely blamed for the loss after he, and his two touch judges, missed a forward pass in what turned out to be France’s match-winning try.
And in his new autobiography Throwing the Book – which was released in the UK overnight – Barnes has taken aim at the side’s then coach, Sir Graham Henry.
That includes previous comments from Henry where he called into question Barnes’ integrity, including questioning whether rugby officials should investigate if match-fixing had taken place.
Some of those comments were made in a book Henry wrote in 2012.
“Someone that senior and with that much influence saying something like that is pretty s***** and could have had huge ramifications for me and the game of rugby,” Barnes wrote in Throwing the Book.
“I can forgive someone saying something horrible in the heat of the moment, but he’d had five years to think about it, and an editor must have said to him at some point, ‘Do you really want to write that?’”
Barnes said after the slurs about his character he was contacted by several defamation lawyers who he knew.
They asked if he wanted to sue Henry, and offered to take on the case.
The ref – who has said his recent retirement followed years of abuse and threats – ultimately decided against such a move.
But he wrote: “I’ve never shaken Henry’s hand since, though, and I doubt I ever will.”
Henry’s captain, Richie McCaw, is also not immune to criticism from Barnes in his new book relating to the Cardiff aftermath.
That also included comments McCaw – who broke down in tears at the press conference after the 2007 quarter-final – later made in his own book.
“Hot on the heels of Henry’s memoir was Richie McCaw’s, and he dredged the whole episode up again,” Barnes wrote.
“McCaw said I’d been ‘frozen with fear’ and ‘wouldn’t make any big calls’ because I was so inexperienced. Besides the forward pass, I’m not sure what ‘big calls’ he thought I should have made.”
In the days after the Cardiff clash – won 20-18 by France – Barnes wrote he got “plenty of stick” from the New Zealand media.
But what shocked him the most was on social media, including Facebook and internet chatrooms.
“While the stuff about me being French and a cheat was like water off a duck’s back, the death threats jarred me a bit,” he wrote in Throwing the Book.
“One Facebook group was called ‘WAYNE BARNES MUST DIE’. Apparently, my Wikipedia page had been turned into a mock obituary even before the final whistle.
“I thought, ‘Fair enough, I missed a forward pass, but I’m not sure I deserve to be bumped off because of it’.”
As debate over Barnes’ perceived role in the All Blacks’ World Cup exit intensified, he recalled life got “sillier and sillier”.
He was mentioned in the New Zealand Parliament and he was also voted the third-most-hated in a survey of Kiwis; a poll topped by Osama bin Laden, followed by Saddam Hussein.
“They burned an effigy of me in Christchurch, and in Cowboys bar in Queenstown, they placed a bust of my head in a urinal, accompanied by the sign: PISSED OFF IN CARDIFF? PISSED ON IN QUEENSTOWN.”
It remained in the toilets for several years, Barnes wrote.
The most-capped referee in international rugby history has also recalled both the tense closing minutes of the test, and how he found out about his on-field error which lead to the try.
“The closer we got to the final whistle, the more I sensed fear in the All Black ranks because they weren’t making dents in the French defence,” he wrote.
“As for me, I wasn’t thinking anything other than, just keep letting the game flow.”
He was first alerted to the possibility of missing a potential forward pass during a “hot debrief” with fellow match officials in a dressing room at the Millennium Stadium not long after fulltime.
Barnes had thought his handling of the game “had all gone quite well”.
When he watched a replay, he realised a pass leading up to France’s second try was “clearly forward”.
“The TMO protocol was different back then, in that it wasn’t used for possible forward passes, and there’s no way I could have seen if it was forward from where I was standing.
“But none of that mattered. We’d allowed the try to stand, so it was going to be a headline.”
Barnes travelled to Paris for the remaining 2007 World Cup games, saying it was a “bit hairy” being around All Blacks fans who had travelled there expecting the side to make the semifinal and final.
He also dressed in disguise so he could go to the England v France semifinal with friends without the fear of abuse.
“They stuck a platinum-blonde wig, fake moustache and giant sunglasses on me, nicknamed me Jimmy Barnes, and off we went to the Stade de France,” Barnes wrote in Throwing the Book.
Barnes was the most junior referee selected to officiate at the 2007 Rugby World Cup.
He was initially selected for four pool games – including the All Blacks v Italy clash – before being “jettisoned before the knockout stages”.
He said he was staggered when he was later awarded the All Blacks v France quarter-final.
Barnes recalled that was “The Big One!”, adding “You could have heard a pin drop” in the World Cup referee meeting when the quarter-final officiating teams were announced.
“The overriding emotion in the room was shock, as if someone had let one rip at a funeral,” Barnes wrote in Throwing the Book.
Several years after the Cardiff match – when insinuations continued to be made about Barnes’ refereeing ability and integrity – he learnt the “crashing irony” that the All Blacks had requested he be appointed to control the quarter-final.
“Presumably, head coach Graham Henry wanted a referee who would let the game flow because they were a very attack-minded team”.
Four years on from the 2007 World Cup, Barnes was one of the referees appointed to handle matches in the 2011 tournament hosted by New Zealand.
Barnes said: “A decision had clearly been made to keep me well away from the All Blacks, because I didn’t even run touch for any of their games”.
Late in the tournament, he took a few days out to travel with his partner Polly around the North Island.
He said he received “dog’s abuse” wherever he went, the worst on a trip to Coromandel.
“One day, Polly and I were walking down to Cathedral Cove, which is a beautiful and very hard-to-get-to marine reserve,” he recalled in Throwing the Book, which is published by Constable.
“Suddenly we heard, ‘Hey, Barnesy! I still haven’t forgiven you for f****** us over in ′07.’ I was thinking, what the hell is wrong with this country?”
Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 30 years of newsroom experience. He covered the 2007 Rugby World Cup and was in the Millennium Stadium press box watching the All Blacks’ Cardiff defeat.
Matt Sherratt will serve as interim head coach for the remainder of the Six Nations.