Tony Johnson
The Rugby Championship is, many would argue, the pre-eminent event of its type outside the World Cup.
It may lack the history, and maybe even some of the ingrained tribalism of the Six Nations, but more often than not since 1996 it has featured the top three ranked teams in the world, and many of the best players on the planet.
It has produced some of the most thrilling, spectacular matches ever played, in front of some of the biggest crowds ever to watch the sport.
It is an elite showcase of the game, and it deserves better than what we saw at the weekend.
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Rugby is a complex game, with an unwieldy law book, and it is impossible for those charged with controlling the matches to always be right.
Even the best will make a mistake. Craig Joubert had the class to own up to one in the Super Rugby final, but fair to say he was dealing with an extremely convoluted area of the game, one open to subjectivity, and one quite open to genuine mistakes. Forgiveable.
But last weekend we were talking about monumental blunders of the sort that really are not acceptable at this level.
We are not going to have sweeping changes to the referee roster. There just don’t seem to be many alternatives. We just need the guys we’ve got doing their job better.
Clearly some of them need to improve their decision making, but better use needs to be made of the assistants on the sideline and the technology at their disposal.
Otherwise next years World Cup will be riddled with controversy….again.
It is a little concerning to read that directives have come down on high for refs in the UK to use the TMO less, because they’re worried about games going on too long.
I think we would all prefer a drawn out game with correct decisions to a quicker game with mistakes.
And is it too much to hope for that referees are not swayed so much by the home crowd? Even the best seem susceptible to that.
In Napier we saw two shockers from the Frenchman Pascale Gauzere.
The first came when he failed to respond when All Black winger Julian Savea was clearly tackled early from behind in pursuit of a kick through. It was at the very least a penalty, more likely a penalty try and/or yellow card and yet it ended up as nothing.
Then later in the game, the Pumas were denied a try that would have got them back into the reckoning, when Gauzere ruled a knock-on from a seemingly clear cut charge down. It was an appalling error and one that cost the Pumas at least a chance of a win.
Both could have been avoided with better communication with the assistants and reference to the TMO. The latter certainly would have produced a different outcome in both cases.
Then we had the case of George Clancy and the Bryan Habana yellow card. Replays from one side, the view Clancy had, certainly hinted at a high tackle, but the reverse angle showed things in a completely different light, hence AR Mike Fraser’s plea to Clancy to review his intentions via the big screen.
That Clancy opted to follow through with his initial intention beggars belief, especially in light of a very similar tackle on Jean de Villiers minutes earlier. Either they were both penalties, or they were both yellow cards, and to me they were penalties at best. Certainly both decisions couldn’t have been right.
Clancy’s performance summed up the frustration many feel about having Northern Hemisphere referees officiating in the Rugby Championship.
There is a suspicion, in the case of Gauzere, that his boss Joel Jutge had sent him down under for some top level work experience.
Incidentally he is the first of three French referees the All Blacks will have in TRC matches which, added to the Romain Poite fiasco at Eden Park last year, does make one shudder a little.
As for Clancy, well the two incidents mentioned were just the exclamation points of a pedantic display, and if refs are going to be pedantic, then they have to match that with accuracy and consistency.
Despite the refereeing drama, the Springboks should still have won.
If they are going to play a kicking game, they know they will need to kick far more accurately. Both sides were guilty of aimless kicks that either didn’t go out when they needed to, went out when they shouldn’t have, and generally did little to apply pressure on the opponent.
Certainly the Boks are missing the pin point accuracy of Fourie du Preez in this regard, but it was astonishing to see someone as reliable as Morne Steyn miss a straightforward penalty clearance to touch, giving the Wallabies the chance to snatch the win.
Four years ago, Stephen Donald made a similar error from general play that cost the All Blacks a win over Australia in Hong Kong. A year later he came back from oblivion to kick a decisive goal in the World Cup final, so maybe history will repeat itself for Morne!
In the meantime you wonder if Heyneke Meyer might consider bringing Handre Pollard into the mix for Wellington, because the Springboks need to change things up a bit.
The Boks know that if they can’t win this one, then the title will be slipping away from them, and the All Blacks could wrap it up before they even get to Ellis Park.
Mind you, test matches between the two nations have a life of their own. They are often part of a series, but each match is its own entity, not so much a case of he who laughs last, but who has the latest laugh!
But right now, even with Sam Whitelock, Jerome Kaino and Liam Messam missing from the pack, the All Blacks must go in favourites at home.
They contained the powerful Pumas pack in Napier, and created four good tries for an important bonus point.
The Springboks will never be written off in this country, but they will need to be a lot more accurate than in Perth.
They will need to take the lead from Duane Vermeulen, who was the outstanding player on the park in Perth. The penalty against him for the best tackle of the game was absurd.
A guy who started out looking like a better than average ball running forward has developed into a fantastic all purpose player, and the clash between he and Kieran Read, who is slowly getting back to his best, will be worth the asking price alone.
Likewise the battle at lock between two remarkable young giants in Brodie Retallick and Eben Etzebeth.
Finally thanks for the well wishes last week. They are gratefully received even if they didn’t do the trick. I missed calling the test in Napier which was a bummer.
But we move on. There is the first Springbok-All Black test of the year to look forward to.
Is it too much to hope we can have a game free of rancour and controversy?