Scott Barrett and the All Blacks battled with some officious refereeing. Photo / photosport.nz
Scott Barrett and the All Blacks battled with some officious refereeing. Photo / photosport.nz
OPINION:
The All Blacks self-imploded at Twickenham, but the more spectacular incendiary device was the pack mentality of the officials who micro-managed the life out of the game to leave some wondering whether the World Cup is going to be hijacked by pedantry, fakery and group-think.
As much as the35-7 loss represented a bad night for the All Blacks, the bigger loser was potentially the global rugby fraternity.
The international game isn’t going to grip anyone – from hard-core follower to uninitiated – if World Cup games fall victim to the same virus of heavy and unjustified Television Match Official interference and this obsessive need to hunt for the tiniest infringements.
Rugby needs a different vibe if it’s going to win over a new audience and persuade its old faithful to stick with it.
Its first task at this World Cup has to be to establish clear and consistent guidelines about its expectations around the role of TMO and how they should interact with the referee.
Primarily, someone needs to state unequivocally whether the TMO is empowered to proactively scour for stuff no one sees, or whether their function is to simply provide support, guidance and confirmation when asked to do so by the referee.
Or more bluntly put, World Rugby needs to determine whether it wants referees to be in charge during the World Cup or just have them defer to the bloke in the bunker who has every angle covered.
It was never clear at Twickenham whether referee Mathew Carley was in control of the game, or really just the on-field representative of TMO Tom Foley.
It became impossible to tell and it would be interesting to know how many TV viewers began scanning their phones 20 minutes into the match at Twickenham – half watching the game, half scrolling Instagram in the hope it might provide the entertainment that the rugby couldn’t.
And this is rugby’s biggest problem on the eve of the World Cup – it has got itself in a horribly befuddled state about what it wants from whom, and when confusion reigns, opportunists thrive.
Ian Foster looks dejected following the team's defeat following the All Blacks v South Africa match at Twickenham. Photo / David Rogers / Getty Images)
One minute we hear that referees have been asked to be more decisive, to back themselves based on what they have seen in real time.
But while that’s a sensible policy to drive, it hasn’t always delivered the accuracy of outcome the sport needs.
Take the first penalty that was awarded by Carley at Twickenham. It went against the All Blacks, Ethan de Groot being pinged for his elbow hitting the ground.
Yet look closely and South African tighthead Frans Malhebre had his knee on the ground a second before de Groot.
Carley, though, wanted to be decisive and bold so he penalised the All Blacks – going straight to a penalty instead of the usual free kick.
Just as he again wanted to be decisive in awarding the second penalty – penalising the All Blacks for playing Eben Etzebeth in the air.
Somehow, though, in his quest to assert his control, Carley failed to see that Etzebeth illegally jumped across and into the All Blacks’ airspace.
Decisive is good, but decisive and inaccurate is a problem. What became yet more of an issue in London was that Foley actively injected himself into the game by constantly offering Carley advice and situational updates.
The lines became blurry and a referee who was trying to do what he thought was the right thing – make decisions for himself – seemed to increasingly defer to the TMO and lose his confidence.
None of this should be mistaken as justification for the All Blacks performance: they didn’t play well, South Africa did and that was the story of the result.
Their victory was entirely deserved and a reminder, a warning even, that they have such colossal power in their set piece and at the breakdown that they can crush anyone if they are able to build a bit of momentum and control the pace of the game.
But that doesn’t mean they didn’t take advantage of the confusion they were seeing in the way the game was being refereed.
They were quick to work out who was really running the game and that’s maybe why Malcolm Marx perhaps milked the incident for which Scott Barrett received his second yellow card.
Sam Cane is shown a yellow card by Referee Matthew Carley. Photo / Dan Mullan / Getty Images)
The disappointing thing was that Marx, while sitting on the turf waiting for attention, waited until Carley was looking and then signalled for the referee to refer the incident to the TMO.
This hasn’t historically been the rugby way – to advise the officials like that, to coerce them into specific actions, but it’s going to happen throughout the World Cup because players know that it will get them what they want.
They know that the lack of clarity about who is in charge is something to exploit and that playing the system is a great way to play the opposition.
