Nick Mallett has criticised the IRB for not taking action against poor refereeing.

Mallett, who voiced his opinion after the match is now angry at the way which the IRB has handled the situation.

Most fans and Mallett still feel that the IRB’s admissions that Romain Poite was wrong,  is too little, too late. The admission that Poite was wrong does not change the result and certainly changed the outcome of the tournament.

In an interview conducted with Mallett the following was said:

“Poite will be sanctioned by the referees’ association, but the Springboks don’t get the opportunity to replay the game: the result stands. It was an unfair contest from the moment Bismarck was sent off after half-time.

“That decision guaranteed that the Springboks would lose the game. It almost certainly guaranteed that the All Blacks would get a bonus point.”

Regarding the match against Argentina where Springbok Captain Jean de Villiers complained about eye gouging and biting, Mallett said the following:

“With two assistant referees on the side of the field and the benefit of slow motion replays and the TMO up in the stands, there is no reason why an official should make a hasty decision on the field and what was inexcusable was that he (Walsh) didn’t ask for an opinion from the TMO.”

Mallett furthermore claimed that they should start looking at giving players the right to challenge on field decisions. Something like they use in cricket or tennis, where the Captain has a number of challenges.

This could solve the problems in rugby, as rugby has become such a fast-paced game, it is easy to miss judge or wrongly give a penalty for an incident that did not deserve it. One is looking at something like giving each team 3 referrals, for example. If you challenge a decision and the referee was correct you lose one of your referrals, if you challenge and the referee was wrong you keep your number of referrals. This could add some minutes to the game but could solve players being sent off unfairly or penalties getting awarded wrongly.