Rugby: Honiss deserves yellow card

Much handwringing was done about the reluctance of Northern Hemisphere referees Derek Bevan, Ed Morrison and Jim Fleming to use yellow cards during the recent Tri-Nations.

Excuses were given that they were unfamiliar with the sinbin concept for professional fouls and instead dished out penalties as the World Cup format will demand in Britain next month.

The northern trio are heavy-duty referees, severe with the whistle as they give the impression they would rather penalise than empathise.

But not even that threesome would run to the penalty try torrent Paul Honiss delivered at Carisbrook in Sunday's NPC meeting between Otago and North Harbour.

It seemed as soon as Honiss awarded the first penalty try he was then compelled, for the sake of consistency, to repeat the sentence again and again and ...

NZRFU referees director Keith Lawrence said there would be no special inquiries into Honiss' work and, as usual, he would be getting three reports about the game. Lawrence had not seen the match and had only had a brief chat to Honiss about his rulings.

If Honiss thought tries would have been scored had the defending sides not infringed, then he is quite justified in making his decision. But his rulings raise a number of issues.

* Why did he not bring out the yellow card for the offences if they were deliberate? Isn't the sinbin a better deterrent than the dubious penalty try. But even if he rules a penalty try doesn't that also warrant a yellow card?

* Where is the consistency going to be for the rest of the competition? Is the same policy going to continue from all referees or just Honiss, and why has he waited until round four of the NPC to introduce his judgments?

Surely there have been similar offences in other matches Honiss has refereed this season but he has not taken the same decision. It could be argued that quite often players who are offside (as Honiss ruled) prevent a probable try from being scored.

One critic noted that Honiss was just one penalty try short of giving himself a bonus point for the afternoon at Carisbrook.

It was a jocular remark but showed how Honiss' work took on farcical proportions. There were only two penalty tries awarded in all first division games last season.

Honiss should have warned teams first about his intentions otherwise it seemed he was making interpretations on the run.

We can applaud attempts to rid rugby of ugly, cynical, professional fouls. There is also a very useful deterrent - the yellow card - which can hurt teams as well without reducing games to comic proportions.

Rugby is a game played on the edge. "Intelligent cheating" whether coaches, players and officials want to admit it, is a huge part of the game especially in that convoluted, body-mangling mess that goes by the description of tackled ball.

Rugby will advance as soon as the moratorium on law changes is lifted. Sorting out the tackled ball shenanigans, the offside line, shady practices, the scrummaging nonsense - all those issues have to be addressed and then the spinoff problems for referees will also be cleaned up.

* The World Cup refereeing appointments are expected to be revealed today. Honiss, Paddy O'Brien and Colin Hawke are the three New Zealand referees at the World Cup with Steve Walsh jnr a touch judge. Those officials will continue refereeing the NPC for another two weekends before leaving for Britain.