Referee Jaco Peyper gives a yellow card to Beauden Barrett of the All Blacks during the Bledisloe Cup opener

The performance of Romain Poite in this weekend’s Bledisloe Cup re-match will be under more scrutiny than ever after provocative comments from the All Blacks and Poite’s contemporary Jonathan Kaplan this week.

Kaplan, who refereed 68 Test matches, including seven Bledisloe Cup battles to become the most experienced international referee before his retirement last year, opened the batting with a defence of Jaco Peyper, who has come under fire for his officiating of the Wallabies’ 12-12 draw in Sydney last week.

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Kaplan claimed Peyper made some mistakes but did well to mitigate the All Blacks’ use of “marginal tactics under pressure” in Test matches, including the Bledisloe Cup opener.

“Are the referees finally beginning to understand what needs to be done to eliminate this constant in their game when they come under pressure in their 22m area??” he said on his own website, RateTheRef.

“Jaco Peyper made mistakes in this game no doubt, but needs credit for dishing out the cards when they were deserved. It engenders a whole lot of trust when the referee is prepared well, and is prepared to act.”

“Having said that, NZ can feel very proud of being able to withstand the pressure at the end of the game despite a numerical disadvantage… How many others would have?”

It was a different story in Auckland, where All Blacks coach Steve Hansen claimed a moral victory after a meeting with Peyper after the match.

Hansen was careful to make clear the world champions were their own worst enemy in the tense but hollow match, but said Peyper had offered a mea culpa over his refereeing of the scrums.

“We’ve spoken to the referee about the scrummaging. He put his hand up, said he got the free-kicks wrong. But we can’t control [the referee], we’ve had the discussion we needed to have and moved on. It’s about us playing our game and playing it better than we played it last week,” he said.

After declaring he wouldn’t get into the refereeing issues, Hansen was asked what Peyper had conceded he got wrong.

“Where do you want me to start?” he barked. “The free-kick he felt was wrong and he was not sure why he called pre-engage. The first yellow card was wrong – the ball was out.”

“It was a good conversation, I respect the man for his honesty… he’s no different than players – some days you have a bad day. He had a bad day at the office and put his hand up.”

“But I’ve got to emphasise, it wasn’t just his problem. We had a hell of a bad day ourselves so we’ll forget about him and concentrate on what we can do.”

The debate will put the spotlight on Poite, who heavily penalised the Wallabies scrum in the deciding Test of the British and Irish Lions series last year.

Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie, who took over from Robbie Deans after that series, said earlier this week he had no concerns about the impact of perception or Poite’s recent history.
“You’ve got to build a reputation over time,” McKenzie said. “You can trash it overnight, but it takes time to build it. He (Poite) was on the sideline so he would have been watching it naturally and probably forming an opinion.

“There’s no doubt the French referees at scrum-time will favour the scrum going forward. That’s a philosophical approach in French rugby, which I understand so you’ve got to make sure you’re not going backwards.”

Kaplan did not address Peyper’s policing of the set piece at ANZ Stadium, but did question the South African’s “general accuracy in this fixture”, including his yellow card to All Blacks’ reserve Beauden Barrett.

“…It appeared that the ball was not placed at the tackle, but left the hands of the ball carrier and so it could well have been a case of general play and hence a play on situation,” he said.

“It was a tough call to make as the outcome depends on slow motion adjudication, and perhaps the referee just had enough of what he rightly or wrongly considered to be negative tactics. I still feel for NZ in this particular case.”

But he was a staunch supporter of his former colleague’s offside calls at the weekend, in comments that mirror what is recognised, in Australia and South Africa at least, as the All Blacks’ preference for giving away penalties in their own 22m zone rather than risk the opposition scoring a try – and a potential seven points.

“What is frustrating for me is when the commentary team don’t give credit when the answer is clear to me. An example of this is the penalty to level up the scores at 9-9,” Kaplan wrote.

“The words “Jaco Peyper has found an offside penalty” would seem to suggest that they at the very least felt it was a “referee’s call “. The decision was accurate.

“It needs to be delivered every time, even in those tough tight ones where we would all love the players to decide the outcome on their own but from my own experience, I know that we are called upon to make the big decisions in those exact moments!”

“Almost the entire NZ team were offside and advanced – a clear and important penalty for the referee to deliver.”