Romain Poite, the most influential Frenchman since Inspector Clouseau
IF Wallabies fans were dismayed by the whistle-happy performance of referee Jaco Peyper last weekend, they will be equally alarmed to hear that Frenchman Romain Poite is in charge of Saturday’s Bledisloe Cup return bout in Auckland.
Poite controlled last year’s big third Test defeat to the British & Irish Lions in a game in which the Wallabies front row was hammered by the referee.
FoxSports
Lions prop Alex Corbisiero was awarded man of the match for his dominant scrum display in the 41-16 thrashing, and after honours were shared in last weekend’s scrum against the All Blacks at ANZ Stadium, the Wallabies will be hoping Poite isn’t overly tough on their engagement and feed.
The first Bledisloe Test descended into a dour draw as the rain-soaked spectacle was stifled by Peyper, who blew 23 penalties and four free-kicks while issuing two yellow cards to the All Blacks.
With a forecast for clear day in Auckland for Saturday’s game at Eden Park, Poite should be under pressure from officials to limit his whistling and let the game flow as southern hemisphere spectators demand.
Poite earned global headlines during last year’s Rugby Championship when he sin-binned South African hooker Bismark du Plessis for an innocuous shoulder on All Blacks superstar Dan Carter, and both he and the IRB conceded the decision was wrong in retrospect.
But while the Wallabies showed in the 12-12 draw last weekend that they have made some significant strides, the regard for their scrum is a week-to-week proposition.
Following the disaster in the final Lions match, the Wallaby scrum made good strides in the Rugby Championship.
However, in their opening match against England at Twickenham on the spring tour last November, referee George Clancy blew several scrum penalties against Australia, leading coach Ewen McKenzie to address his concerns to the IRB that perception was influencing poor decisions by match officials against his side.
Meanwhile, the All Blacks resisted the opportunity to have a dig at Peyper, who sin-binned prop Wyatt Crockett correctly, but also yellow-carded Beaden Barrett for an unclear infringement.
“I think sometimes the team that has momentum perhaps gets the rub of the green, in the first 30 minutes we got that, and then when you’re under the pump, we were guilty of trying to force things a bit rather than backing our defence,” All Blacks captain Richie McCaw said.
“There were some decisions that, because we were on the back foot, went against us. That’s the nature of it.”
“We need to be a little bit smarter at times, especially when we’re under the pump, that we don’t give the ref an opportunity to make decisions that makes it worse.”
Kiwi coach Steve Hansen added: “At the end of the day, probably the guy that’s got the toughest job in rugby union at the moment is the ref.”
“It’s become, rapidly, a speed game, especially when you get two sides like these [All Blacks and Wallabies] who want to play the game, it’s played at 100 miles per hour, he’s trying to make decisions on a whole lot of things, and when you see them later on TV it’s pretty clear-cut, yes he got that right or no he didn’t get that right.”
“There’s no point getting too bothered by it.”
“You’ve just got to deal with it on the night. If you dominate the game and go forward, usually you’re on the right end of it.”
why would Wallaby fans be upset with Peyper? he tried as hard as humanly possible to gift that game to the wobs, but couldnt.
like SA, Aus were unable to beat an AB side that was down to 14 men for a quarter of the match.
I dont mind if the ABs lose to a better performance on the day, but the game was ruined by Peypers refusal to ref fairly.
now I know many will say its sour grapes from me, but I dont care.
Peyper was a friggin disgrace. he pinged Crockett and binned him for cynical play, but refused to do the same when Aussie players did the same thing?
I imagine if SA was on the end of his reffing performance facebook and armband companies would have been inundated with conspiracy theorists and those saying “well the ABs often get the rub of the green, so haha because it went against them this time”
but congrats, seems the chorus of complaints, whinging, girly crying across the world is finally starting to influence refs..
sad day for rugby when clowns like Peyper ruin it for all.
ka kite ano.
Pops…….
You are being the “whinging, crying girl” today.
More pain for the Wallabies, dear oh dear Peyper was a disgrace who should & will be ashamed of that reffing performance, one of the worst displays of reffing since the bad old days of Gerty & his ilk in the republic.
Hahahaha kiwis don’t koan about the refs.
This from a country that has produced some of the most crooked twisted and bent referees of all time.
Brilliant.
This pair of immature and emo posts just makes their choke sweeter.
😆
I tend to agree with the Kiwis on this. Peyper was CR@P.
That said, it was probably the best result for SA in terms of their chances of winning the competition, and that can only inspire a multitude of conspiracy theories.
@ gunther:
No that would be Gerty & co funny guy, still doesn’t change the fact you’re one from the last 10 though does it now 😉
@ Scrumdown:
He was terrible mate, good result for SA but that’s about it.
It doesn’t change the fact that this bleating is glorious.
This from the country that has offered the most craven match officials in the history of the game.
Noodleboy carrying on here like a 12 year old that’s just wet herself.
Read your post from the weekend. Massively immature.
Pathetic really.
😆
@ gunther:
Take a look at your photo 😉
@ nga puhi:
Good and fair comments by Hansen & Richie.What a contrast to yours.
@ ryecatcher:
Their players have always been classier than their ” fans”.
@ ryecatcher:
They were the public comments I’ll think you’ll find what was said behind closed doors would be unprintable, so you thought Peyper was fair to both sides and reffed well and if the same had happened to the Bokke you’d wouldn’t have had a problem?
@ gunther:
You mean like Piet Van Zyl?
Funny guy I have to go but you should only concern yourself with one thing, 1 from 10 nothing else matters my mature friend but you know this. 😉
Noodles your behaviour here every day makes van Zyl like like a Rhodes Scholar.
@ NZINCHINA:
13 From memory the test which you are talking about was
1976.Isn,t Wiki grand?(Gerty–Gert Bezuidenhout)
Seems that smouldering resentment is a dish best tasted
mouldy.
Let the hatred continue.You excel at it.
After all,Gerty set the benchmark ,and has been followed by,
nay improved upon by all subseqent SA refs.
Incidentally I agree with you re Gerty but38 years is a long time.
It’s interesting how we in Nz regard Sa officials as the greatest cheats in the history of the game and visa versa for Supporters of the Bok…Perspective I spose…but Peyper has that tinge of a home town Ref … and when you’ve got one of those it becomes difficult to dominate the game and go forward but not impossible… all things considered…happy with a draw…Peyper is a fuktard… 😆
@ Te Rangatira:
You still got off lightly….imagine if the AB’s played Peyper’s Sharks in Durban….then you would have begged for a draw and only 2 yellows 😀
@ nortierd:
He is one of those refs that favours the home team… you have to be at your best to overcome that…Abs weren’t… imagine if Abs lost..lol
Oh the joys of being a ref, interesting to see the article refer to Australia possibly feeling hard done by the ref yet was listening to Christchurch based talk radio and every now and then there were references to the refs performance on Saturday, seems like both sets of fans think he did them in
Only thing which confused me while listening to the radio from New Zealand was that they were interviewing the mayor (I think from Christchurch) but I don’t know why they kept referring to her as the ‘mare’
@ Bullscot:
That’s when you know he did a good job.
😆
22 @ gunther:
it was actually quite interesting listening to all the goings on from a city at the other side of the world, the ‘mare’ being hassled to reveal information by people from blog websites making information request for all email and mobile txt correspondence etc, a lot of construction work still on the go there and then just hearing that folk there are also struggling with things like heating bills etc just like in many other parts of the world, so often you can build up a Utopia like image of places that you have not been too.
Ha no it wasn’t he so that is why at first I thought they were being sexist, but later realized it was just me not getting their accent
@ gunther:
I liked that one…krakup…
Bullscot wrote:
Hi Bullscot..
That is how it goes .. i had a friendly “debate” with our friend gunther re the ref in the WP/bulls game on Saturday.. I (wp supporter)was quite happy with him but Gunther (a capetonian bull) called him a “disgrace”.
Today I saw in a local newspaper that Alister Coetzee has said the ref allowed the Bulls front row to get away with murder on Saturday.
What does it all mean? Who is wrong and who is right?
25 @ robzim:
Nah congratulations man, was a hard weekend for us losing all 4 games to your teams.
Hi robzim who knows, guess it just shows how fickle us fans can be. Speaking for myself I don’t think always know and understand all the laws to a T so often I tend to just see if the ref is blowing consistently for what looks like similar things against both teams. But I think another part of the issue is that when watching the game (at least I do) we tend to be focussed a bit more on what our team is or isn’t doing than the opposition so that is why we pick up on how the ref is doing according to our team if that makes sense.
Didn’t see the game against you guys on Saturday but am sure the ref was blatantly on your side
Te Rangatira wrote:
Nah, just a prat.
I do believe the froggie pictured above,
is giving us all “The finger”.
Good to see Rangi back.
@ Bullscot:
20
Two different types of ‘Discontent’ here
In Sydney it had been a common knowledge before the Test that t Peyper is on the taking and will swing it the Wallabies way, or so my relative living there told me so 😉
So the Aussies naturally felt they were taken for a ride 😆
The ABs followers feel angry because the NZRU did nothing to nix Joubert and Peyper appointments , wasn’t a state secret that the weak rand makes SA referees ‘vulnerable’ to the AUS$ 😉
😆
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