Editorial: Even the top refs deserve a bit of help

Owens awarded a penalty try against the ABs for no apparent reason. Photo / Getty

Hansen’s complaints about Owens don’t stack up but rugby still needs to embrace the challenge system

For many people, Welsh rugby referee Nigel Owens went from wizard to wally at Twickenham last weekend. He was not the first official to suffer that fate this year.

All the criticism would suggest that for the refereeing fraternity next year's World Cup is an accident waiting to happen. That, however, would be an overreaction to what happened during the All Blacks' victory over England.

Clearly, Owens did not have one of his better days, notably in awarding a penalty try against the All Blacks for no apparent reason. But an examination of the complaints made after the match, especially by the All Blacks' coach, Steve Hansen, suggests he was not that bad either.

In any sporting contest, the chief aim of officials should be to get their decisions right. That was Owens' ambition through the test.

But he was inconsistent. On one hand his decision to ask the television match official to check his awarding of Charlie Faumuina's try, while assiduous, reeked of self-doubt. On the other, his decision to overrule the TMO and give Dane Coles a yellow card was all self-confidence, even if it took too long to reach. Owens was in charge of the match, and retaliation of the sort perpetrated by Coles is almost always punished this way. Similarly, referee Wayne Barnes, after being alerted by the crowd, was right to penalise a high tackle by Liam Messam at Ellis Park last month.

Hansen's complaint is that in making these decisions the referees were unduly swayed by partisan crowds. They, in turn, were reacting to constant television replays on stadiums' big screens. "My biggest concern is that TV directors are starting to have an influence on the game," he said. Those directors are, of course, keen to highlight controversial moments in a game. That is their job. What Hansen is, in effect, advocating is censorship in the interests of neutering home advantage. That will never be acceptable. If the big-screen replays makes the jobs of referees more difficult, so be it.

The All Black coach is on far firmer ground in his support of a system in which referees could be challenged for a "clear and obvious" mistake through referrals to the TMO. Opponents claim this would paralyse the game. But the same was said when tennis, cricket and hockey each introduced challenges. It is not said any more. In rugby, a game that is inherently slower, the impact could be dampened by restricting the number of challenges to two.

Hansen says that he has been advocating this for three years. But as with seemingly all matters involving rugby's international governors, any change, however desirable, is glacially slow.

But the case for a challenge system will become irresistible as refereeing blunders are increasingly highlighted and the pressure to ensure crucial decisions are correct mounts.

The International Rugby Board was right to say that it was happy with the performance of the match officials during the Twickenham test. It needs to recognise, however, that no referee can get everything right.

Craig Joubert, reckoned to be the best of the best, with Owens, was guilty of a boo-boo towards the end of this year's Super Rugby final, effectively costing the Crusaders the game. Clearly, the best in the world, as well as officials of lesser calibre, deserve and need all the help that is available.