Stephen Jones, that irrepressible British critic of Southern Hemisphere rugby, has predictably launched a scathing attack on the latest version of the Super 14, labelling it “tripe”, “sickly”, “a shambles” and “pap rugby”.

It was only a matter of time before Jones pointed his poisoned pen in the direction of the Super 14 with its new law interpretations. The 137-point fiasco in Johannesburg last weekend proved irresistible.

In his weekly “Rolling Maul” column for The Times, Jones labelled the match “a ghastly total of 18 tries against non-defending”.

“Let us not pretend that the followers of the Chiefs, or anyone else for that matter, will not feel sick if such tripe is served up for much longer in the Super 15,” wrote Jones, forgetting that the tournament is actually the Super 14 for another season before Melbourne joins next year.

“I’ve often written of the dangers of chasing the concept of entertainment in rugby. It made a complete joke of Super Rugby and it is in grave danger of doing so all over again,” Jones continued.

“It is living proof of the shambles that occurs when senior officials of struggling unions make the gross error to believe that endless sickly movements are the answer to their problems.

“By doing so, they put pressure on coaches and especially on referees. The biggest lie is that the pap rugby of last weekend was caused by a so-called crackdown by Southern Hemisphere referees on tackling.

“No doubt they were. But there was far more to it than that. Effectively, they abandoned any semblance of a fair contest for possession in any phases of the match and felt under pressure so that the attacking team were allowed to do so no matter what. They also feared that their paymasters would be on their backs if the game did not yield around 15 tries minimum.”

It’s hard to argue too much against Jones’ ramblings on a game that did evolve into a game of touch over the last quarter and almost single-handedly undid the promising displays of the previous weekend’s opening round

To his credit Jones did put things into perspective with a not-too-flattering view of the game in his own back yard.

He’s looking for some common ground between the approaches of the two Hemispheres to give rugby a global approach that will provide a better product than is currently on display at either end of the spectrum.

“While all this was happening (in Johannesburg), there was a particularly grim series of the Guinness Premiership in England and some forgettable Magners League games. The first half of the Leicester-Gloucester game and almost all of the Wasps-Saracens game were either tepid or dismal. And to think that these four teams are all in the top half of the Premiership,” noted Jones.

“But all it needs is a touch on the tiller. European referees must now abandon the so-called preventative refereeing bawling, which merely gives teams a second and a third chance to kill the play.

“They must also ease off so that any player who is isolated gets just a little more time to play the ball. There is absolutely no need to start bullying referees and upholding the dodgy principle of ball-in-play time.

“No doubt things will settle down. People will come to realise that there are no new laws in rugby at the moment, simply people panicking too much about the old ones.

“The greatest mistake is to assume that a rugby match ending 72-65 is what spectators, players, sponsors and television companies actually want. They do not.”