Whose fault is it anyway?
by Lydia Brewer
Unless you’ve been living under a rock since the weekend, you would have heard about New Zealand’s disappointing defeat in the Rugby World Cup on Sunday morning.
I say disappointing not because of the sadness of the actual event, but more in reference to the fairness of the game.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the biggest rugby fan, but I can watch a game along with any other red-blooded New Zealander.
I can’t, however, understand how referee Wayne Barnes cannot be held partially accountable for the defeat.
Being a person of relative ignorance when it comes to sport, and in a half-asleep stupor while watching the second half, I could still see the blatant favouritism of referee Wayne Barnes.
First he sends off Luke McAllister for practically nothing, then came the forward pass. I mean unless he was reading his paper at the time, it was pretty hard to miss. Then he missed penalty after penalty in the final ten minutes, allowing the French to win by a narrow 20-18.
The French, granted, played excellently, and I don’t mean to be a sore loser. I don’t even really care about rugby that much. But when the game is so blatantly unfair it’s hard to see why we should even bother participating. Even some French were reported by the New Zealand Herald to admit that with fair refereeing, the game would have gone to the kiwis.
Could it be, perhaps, that Wayne Barnes would have rather seen the French play the English in the semi-final, instead of the All Blacks?
Or maybe he simply hadn’t had enough experience to be trusted with a game this important. No matter what the motive or reason behind it, it makes it hard to become passionate about a game that so clearly needs to have it’s refereeing reviewed.
It seems bizzarre to me, rugby novice that I am, that the whole world is allowed to see parts of the game replayed in slow motion while the referee is not. He cannot hear what the commentators have said, or see what everyone else saw. But despite this, the rulings on so many judgements went in favour of the French and it’s pretty hard to believe that Barnes was entirely neutral.
Other New Zealanders seem to agree with me (from the New Zealand Herald website www.nzherald.co.nz):
MJ, Auckland
“The blame is not on any of the team ie. The players, coaching and management staff, but on the technology that we so much rely on for all the 50/50 decision calls during any match. I could not understand why the forward pass was not picked up by the marshalls, and I mean all the five of them, during numerous replays on the big screen in the stadium. If it was a court case, would you ignore the evidence clearly on such a footage like this one, and still sentence and prosecute the innocent.”
Lee, Whangarei
“They lost because the referee was too inexperienced (or he wanted France to win). Everyone could see that the pass was forward. His referring wasn’t consistent. One rule for one and one for another.”
Larni, Tauranga
“It was a great game of rugby where the result went the wrong way because of some extremely questionable refereeing and linesman inadequacies - Luke McAllister being sin binned, the froggies that were creeping up offside around the rucks to upset the forward drives in the second half down near the frogs line that definately would have resulted in the All Blacks scoring but went ignored by the onfield officials. Hard to accept but, the frogs did play well. Hard done by - to quote Grant Fox - The French will advance, the referee - shouldn’t!”