KEY POINTS:
It is timely, given the mixed work of referees on this All Black tour, that the International Rugby Board will consider soon whether to operate a new system with the best officials in charge of the top internationals.
That sort of proposal would require a great deal of change, not least the agreement of the best whistlers about more travel and greater rewards for their repeated involvement.
There are 17 referees listed on the top level of merit by the IRB although there is a widespread belief that of those, only the quartet of Jonathan Kaplan, Alain Rolland, Joel Jutge and Steve Walsh, stand out for their consistency and control.#Underneath are men like Craig Joubert, the unrelated Mark and Bryce Lawrence and perhaps Stu Dickinson.
Somewhere down the list is Wayne Barnes, the official whose last two encounters with the All Blacks have been undistinguished and Alan Lewis who was equally modest in his work at Hong Kong.
If the new concept gets the green light from the IRB, blokes like Barnes and Lewis would not get to rule on top matches until they had shown much greater clarity and judgment in dealing with matches like Ireland and Canada at a slightly lower level.
There is a long way to go though. The IRB would have to approve the concept and the referees would have to buy into the deal.
But there is a forceful argument that it does not make sense that some of the better calibre whistlers like Kaplan and Rolland are only controlling a handful of internationals a season.
These are delicate issues for the IRB to contend with and who knows what deals will be done when they meet in Huguenot House just off St Stephen's Green in Dublin. Caught right in the middle will be New Zealander Paddy O'Brien whose tasks include rating, guiding, assessing and appointing match officials.
O'Brien looks pretty chirpy for a bloke who will spend six months at home in Invercargill next year and the rest of the year on the road with the Six Nations, under-20 tournament in Japan, the Lions tour of South Africa, the Tri-Nations tournament and then work around the southern hemisphere sides touring the UK again.
He is halfway through a seven-week stretch in Europe this time, where once again he has had to deal with some invective about Barnes' credentials, or more particularly suitability, to referee at the very top level.
We wanted to ask Barnes about his work but the 29-year-old who also works as a barrister in London, has consistently rebuffed those requests. His next public appearance will be in Italy later this month when he referees Italy against the Pacific Islanders.
Naturally, because of Barnes' controversial part in the All Blacks' World Cup quarter-final defeat last year, the assessment of his latest work with the All Blacks in Edinburgh took on a sharper focus. An early yellow card then another were debatable judgments, while he had some problems sorting out the breakdowns and his scrum rulings were at best fuzzy.
This is not about the All Blacks being hard done by as somehow they escaped with scrum infractions when they were a man down near their own line. They were due, overnight, to present their thoughts and evidence on Barnes' performance in a meeting with O'Brien.#"Criticism should not worry us because I think if we can't take some of the heat then we should get out of the kitchen," O'Brien said. "We are always talking about how we can improve what we do and we had all the referees and their managers in here last week."
He pointed out some of the defections from the top ranks since 2000 as an example of issues in finding experienced, capable replacements.
Andre Watson, David McHugh, Peter Marshall, Scott Young, Andrew Cole, O'Brien himself, Paul Honiss, Kelvin Deaker, Tappe Henning, Tony Spreadbury and Joel Dume had all called it quits. Some like Spreadbury were mentoring rising refs (he actually coaches Barnes) but that process was tough.
"Losing all that calibre makes it hard to replace them. We have got to expose others to the test environment but our cup is not overflowing with loads of personnel," O'Brien said.
Under the current system, each union round the world contracted their referees while the IRB was then responsible for appointing them to tests. There were regular re-ratings, appraisals and judgments.
The best testing grounds for the officials were the European Cup and the Super 14, that was where those on the rise could be evaluated. It was a good process but the IRB could only judge those officials appointed by individual countries. Tapes of every game in those competitions were sent to the IRB where the officials' work was evaluated. They also looked closely at officials in the global under-20 tournament. O'Brien and four IRB selectors, Bob Francis, Michel Lamoulie, Stephen Hilditch and Henning would scan for test referee candidates.
Taking your whistle to the highest level could be lucrative with some earning about $200,000. The counter to the good coin was the wear and tear and travel schedule.
O'Brien wondered whether there was too much spent on players while referee development was not so high on the list of priorities, they did not seem to get a spinoff from World Cup grants. Union budgets invariably looked at player payments but was it time to channel more towards refereeing development as well?
