Blackadder leaps to ref's defence

Canterbury 31 Wellington 29

Canterbury captain Todd Blackadder cannot believe that referee Steve Walsh is being criticised for his rulings in the first-division/Ranfurly Shield match against Wellington in Christchurch.

Canterbury scored a converted try in the dying seconds to win.

Wellington, who led 29-12 with 20 minutes to go, looked poised for their first successful challenge since 1981.

But Canterbury, who had rarely threatened the Wellington goal-line in the first three-quarters of the match, stormed back with tries to Scott Robertson, Nathan Mauger and Ben Blair's winner right on fulltime.

That try came after a series of penalties near the Wellington line when Blackadder opted for a scrum rather than kicking for touch and taking the lineout.

The penalty and free-kick count in the game was 26-4 in Canterbury's favour.

Walsh punished Wellington repeatedly for killing the ball at the breakdown and sin-binned backs David Holwell and Jason O'Halloran late in the second half.

Walsh's rulings came under attack yesterday.

"I can't believe that," Blackadder said. "So it's all right to infringe these days, is it?

"When a referee does a big game and does a good job, he seems to get bagged for it.

"I thought he did an outstanding job. I don't think he was biased at all.

"He just picked up all the infringements they were certainly doing. When you look at last year's NPC final, they infringed that last 10 minutes and basically denied us a win.

"If they did it again [Saturday], is that fair? Is it fair that infringing sides win crucial games like that?"

Blackadder felt Walsh was consistent.

"A lot of referees will be quite hard at the start and ease up at the end, but he just kept refereeing the game as it should have been, I believe.

"If you look at the tape, every one of them was an infringement and deserved a penalty. Every time you get a roll on and they give a penalty away it stops your momentum.

"It was good to see some yellow cards finally come out."

The Canterbury captain said people critical of the lopsided penalty count should look at why the penalties were awarded.

Canterbury coach Steve Hansen also described Walsh's refereeing as outstanding and fair.

"You can't bag a man for being consistent."

Walsh said he had no doubt he made mistakes, as referees did in every match.

"But, certainly at this stage, without having viewed my tape, I'm pretty at peace with my performance."

He was not totally surprised that people were looking for a scapegoat because it was a close match and the penalty count was lopsided.

He said he had refereed Wellington in their previous NPC game, against Northland in Whangarei, where the penalty count was much lower.

"But they are very ferocious in the tackle. They go in using a style you could describe as rip, shit and bust ... that's the way they play their rugby."

Referees had to be "really on their game" when a team played that way.

The penalties came despite his meeting last Wednesday with Wellington coach Dave Rennie on how to reduce the number of infringements.

When told he had penalised Canterbury only twice in the first half and the same in the second, Walsh said such a relatively clean sheet was fairly unusual.

"I'm not saying they didn't infringe and there may have been occasions when I missed what they were doing, but until I look at the tape, I can't really say for sure."

The news on the refereeing front does not get any better for Wellington, who play Auckland this weekend with Paul Honiss in charge.

Honiss hit the headlines three weeks ago when he said he feared Wellington lock Dion Waller was going to punch team-mate Jason Spice during their match against Southland.

Wellington coach Dave Rennie was furious with Honiss' performance and his decision to speak publicly after the match about what happened on the field.

Rennie yesterday said that he would talk to Honiss this week to clarify some issues before Saturday night's match.

"What Paul said in the media blew everything out of proportion, but we have to put that behind us ... we are not upset to get Paul this week."

- NZPA