Paul Lewis: Paddy thrown over ref form

Paddy O'Brien's remarkable outburst against Australian referee Stu Dickinson - and his subsequent apology - has highlighted a ridiculous state of affairs.

O'Brien is, as this column has mentioned before, the best referee I ever played under - by a short head to Colin Hawke. He reffed his matches as players want - firm, authoritative, with a good grasp of the rules and always with a sense of the flow of the game desired by spectators and participants alike.

But since he has been head of the International Rugby Board referees, O'Brien has exhibited a fierce sense of protection regarding his charges. Until the Dickinson affair.

Two things have to be said at this stage - O'Brien was quite right regarding Dickinson's errors; and Dickinson was quite wrong in his handling of the All Black-Italy scrums. O'Brien's crime was to go public with the whole thing and, in particular, doing so after being in such close proximity to the All Blacks; making it seem as though he might have been favouring his home nation.

Those of us with a wee bit of contact with O'Brien in recent years know this would never have been the case.

During the Tri Nations this year, I wrote a column after the test between the Springboks and the Wallabies - the one where the Wallabies kept the All Blacks' slim hopes of overtaking the Boks alive by winning and denying them the bonus point they needed to wrap up the series.

Wayne Barnes refereed that match and, tongue in cheek a bit, I wrote the following:

Wayne Barnes, eh? Mr Forward Pass (as in "missed a forward pass") is still around and still missing things - but this time the All Blacks are alive. The Boks didn't get the bonus point they needed but it was little thanks to referee Barnes.

Somehow he missed the ugly, flying crunch that Springbok flanker Heinrich Brussouw put on Wallaby hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau which was, at worst, worthy of a yellow card and, at best, a penalty. It led to Polota-Nau leaving the field with injured ribs. Jeez, Wayne.

He also remarkably missed Matt Giteau's drop goal before halftime. Barnes was standing in front of the posts but had to ask the video ref if it had gone over. It had. Clearly. Hmmm.

Somehow Barnes missed at least two forward passes as the Springboks pressed the Wallabies hard towards the end of the first 20 minutes. Many New Zealanders will not be able to help comparing them to THAT forward pass in the 2007 World Cup quarter-final.

I say 'tongue in cheek a bit' because I do not rate Barnes as a test referee yet. I received this email from Paddy O'Brien the next week:

"Is it not time you got over your infatuation of trying to find things wrong with Wayne Barnes? The injury caused to Polota-Nau was not as a result of foul play and was never a PK, let alone a Yellow Card. The referee was not in front of the posts when the dropped goal went over and quite correctly referred it to the TMO to ensure he got the correct decision. This was a very good refereeing performance and it is time you moved on and reported factually on the game rather than searching for drama to sell to your readers."

My "infatuation" with Barnes extends all the way back to a 2007 piece I wrote after that World Cup quarter-final in Cardiff, which explicitly spelled out that Barnes was not the reason the All Blacks lost. The All Blacks were the reason the All Blacks lost. Which is not to say that Barnes refereed that match well.

Here's the thing. Why are referees any less accountable than players? The players are professional. So are the coaches. So are the refs. How come the players and the coaches front up at press conferences and the like to explain themselves but referees are inviolate? As Paddy's email makes clear, there are some in positions of power who don't even like comment being made.

There are reasons why referees have been accorded some protection in the past - the struggle to attract refs; abuse and maintaining a sense of dignity and separation. All good reasons in the amateur era. In the professional era, that argument isn't worth the pea in a whistle.

All referees will make mistakes, just as all players will make mistakes. So why protect them? Standing up straight and answering questions will only increase respect. Being accountable isn't just about that. It's also about learning how to deal with media and other inquiries and being able to state your case.

The downside to the protection racket is that a referee like Stuart Dickinson - who has been refereeing since 1997 - can have controlled 44 test matches and yet, it appears, doesn't know enough about scrummaging to detect when a prop is illegally boring in on his opponent. How can that be? It seems to me Paddy and his ilk might be out there fixing that up rather than firing off emails to journalists.

Allowing referees to state their case publicly will also help flush out all that kind of stuff. Richard Loe (see p93) goes into more detail about why refs don't know enough about scrummaging, but the solution is simple - get help.

Rugby is smart enough to have a video ref decide on at least some matters of accuracy. Compare that to football which last week saw Thierry Henry's hand ball go unpunished by match officials and France wrongly advanced to the World Cup finals at Ireland's expense.

How dumb is that? The referee and linesmen make a mistake or overlook an offence and the wrong result stands. It could have been avoided by using technology and a video ref, but Fifa head Sepp Blatter has been stupidly stubborn on this point. Rugby has an opportunity through all this - make the refs accountable publicly and, if it is true that many refs don't know enough about scrummaging, have a former front rower in attendance with the video ref. Watch the scrums behave themselves then.