A year of inconsistent rugby refereeing

 
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By chief, 27 Dec 2009 chief is a Roar Rookie

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A year of rugby refereeing controversies probably leaves most lost for words. Referees in rugby should not be held solely accountable, rugby is one of the hardest professional sports in the world to officiate, probably the hardest.

Without a doubt, a few appointments by the IRB and SANZAR have certainly left a few people scratching their heads and asking why, namely some of the inconsistencies that has, admittedly, impacted Australia.

Robbie Deans has made it protocol to not comment on referees performance post-match. He did so on one exception, however, in the All Blacks match in Tokyo where Mark Lawrence’s refereeing was IRB standard, he just failed to go to the pocket.

But what the public have found out this year is that if the IRB referees boss is your countryman, you probably will be favoured. Stuart Dickinson faced the wrath of Paddy O’Brien after an ‘average’ performance in Milan. It definitely wasn’t the worst refereeing performance of the year, that is for sure, but it didn’t take the cake for being the best either.

Dickinson refereed the third British & Irish Lions Test match, where he probably had one of the best international performances of the year. Alas, Dickinson was dropped from refereeing the Six Nations. The cowardice by the IRB, and in particularly Paddy O’Brien, will stand in the way of Dickinson getting his justice.

Let’s look at Craig Joubert. His performance in the opening Tri-Nations Test was nothing short of embarrassing. His pre-mediation in his decisions against Al Baxter, his interesting interpretation of the non-productivity at the breakdown, and his inconsistent advantage calls.

No, Deans doesn’t publicly discuss the matters with the media after the Test Match, but Joubert didn’t get dropped – in fact, he was rewarded with the All Blacks versus Wales Test match, which he didn’t perform so well in again. But, once again, Paddy’s favouritism appeared to continue, and he was, seemingly, rewarded once again with a high profile Six-Nations match.

We’ll now come to Jonathan Kaplan. Kaplan had a more then ordinary game with his handling of the Australian-Irish match. Kaplan’s performance impacted the result – a result that should have been Australia’s. This performance was on the same weekend of Dickinson’s Milan blunders. It’s interesting how Paddy would come out and say certain things, or not say in this instance, where he appears to want referees to be more ‘accountable’ for their performances.

The most interesting bit is that Bryce Lawrence, after making his own mind up that an eye gouge is worthy of just a yellow card, gets a high profile Six-Nations appointment.

Let’s sit back and reflect an inconsistent year officiating-wise. Hopefully it won’t be continuing in 2010.

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