Rugby ref tells of 'nasty political stuff'

He cost us our 4th world cup!even watching that game years later it still hurts!

Well we're right to bitch about it,IMO the strongest bok squad we ever had and with a realistic chance of winning that world cup. Thanks to his bias towards Australia we were knocked out.Still to this day one of the worst refereeing displays. :silly:

Loftus, Australians do think he was bad in that game and in our two previous games under him. His very loose policing of the rucks were bad for us against Bokke in Durban and Ireland in the pools match. A lot of concern was expressed prior to QF that Lawrence's appointment could make the difference between us winning or losing a close game. Bokke would not have had Australia pinned in their own quarter for so much of the QF, except that Lawrence was neglecting to penalise breakdown infringements. Once you were there, you then expected Lawrence to suddenly start penalising infringements for your benefit?! You were given all the opportunities you needed, but you didn't take the right options, your fetcher had been smashed by Horwill, and your kicker couldn't land the goals you needed. That's tough I know, but international rugby is a heart-breaking affair.

Shame, you obviously do not understand the rules of rugby union then? Missed high tackles 2 metres away from Lawrence, no daylight after tackles(Pocock), playing the ball on the ground at a ruck,etc. It's funny - only Aussies think he wasn't bad in that game. The very same people that complained about him after the Aus/Irish game! I live in London and decided to say nothing about the match or Lawrence's cheating the next day at work. English, Kiwis and Scottish colleagues of mine came up to me accusing Lawrence of blatantly cheating.

Aussie, not sure I entirely agree with your percpetion there. Many South Africans admitted there were a number of reasons why they lost that match. Just to recap. Two biggest influences in us losing tat match was the loss of Frans Steyn who were in superb form and kept our attack on the front foot and created space for ou backline in the previous matches. The injury of Brussow in the 24th minute when (I think it was Horwill) hit him in the ribs with a shoulder at the ruck. There after we lost our ability to compete at the rucks. Jean de Villiers once again showed his inability or lack of skills in creating two forward passes of which one put Francois Hougaard through the gap to run to the tryline only to be called back for a forward pass. Then lastly, and this is where South Africans blamed Lawrence. In the entire match Australia was only once penalised inside their 22, where they spent the majority of the match on defence. Now in 2010 the ruck laws changed to benefit the attacking team and not the defending team, yet SA were penalised more in the Aussie 22 on attack than Australia were penalised. that to us makes no sense. These are the facts, not some myth that we created. I do agree with you that the SA supporters went over the top, yet what you must realise is that Bryce was not the only horse we flogged. A bug bear of mine though and is still today, was the try australia scored from a kick that Pocock made on the wrong side of the ruck which put the ball into the hands of the Wallaby backs who scored the try.

Ironic think is that Bryce has had some pretty bad matches but the SA - Aus quarter final was not that bad. Bit like the ABs in 2007 creating a myth that the ref was to blame the boks have done the same. Like Barnes, Lawrence needed to have the stength of character to recognise it for what is was and move on

Richard, in fact some of us were complaining after the quarter final, not because of being let out of jail, but because under another referee we wouldn't have been in jail in the first place. As I wrote above, Bryce Lawrence's style was very bad for our forwards, as it had been in the previous two games, vs SA in Durban and vs Ireland in the pool match. The Durban match is justly remembered as a great achievement in Australian rugby - the first time since 1963 that the Wallabies have won back-to-back matches against the Boks at home. But we came very close to losing it, and Lawrence's failure to police the breakdown was the main reason for that (which is not meant to take anything away from the Bokke forwards - they took the chances offered to them). Under another referee I strongly doubt that we would have had to defend as grimly as we did, and for as long as we did in the QF.

While Bryce Lawrence may not be a good referee, the holier-than-thou attitude of ozzie bloggers is distasteful. Short memories have we - the smear campaign by dwyer and o'neill after the Ireland game ring a bell. You weren't complaining after the quarter - final when some generous refereeing got you through to the sf. Funnily enough, when the ab's were knocked out of the '07 tourney, where Wayne Barnes did a number on us ( in a manner far worse than anything sa or oz encountered in 2011); we were called whingers and sore losers.The same WB that is refereeing to this day. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I could draw the conclusion that its ok to stitch up the ab's in wc's, but woe betide it happening to anyone else!

True, onside. The way I see it is that teams have to adjust to the ref on the day and play according to his interpretation as best they can, but their sides are still entitled to complain after the game about poor refereeing. Because you are right, this goes further than just the result in one match - a professional sport with professional teams demands professional refereeing to match. The referees should be under as much scrutiny as the players. I think where some people take it too far, is they observe that the team on the day has to accept the referees rulings and the result that flows from them, but they then extend that to assert that no-one can criticise the refs performance at any time - it ain't so.

Cheers guys. Believe me, I was as angry at the time. It took many therapy sessions to get over it. ;)

Soccer, Rugby League, Boxing, Tennis, Grid Iron, Aussie Rules, Baseball, Basketball, Cricket, mate the list goes on and on and on!!

Agree 100% . cheers :-)

"truly class teams have the ability to size-up a referee’s idiosyncrasies and quickly adjust to them," Shouldn't have to Mike. A ref should not be able to determine how rules be interpreted on the run , resulting in sides needing to modify their game. But only this week mind you, because there will be another ref next week,with another set of personal interpretations. This is international professional TEST sport in 2012 . Rugby's eternal encumberance.. Needs fixing.

ps - cracking article the other day. Didn't have access to the interweb to participate in the discussion. Much too busy sucking back the Bintangs and teaching the young uns rude, I mean rugby, songs.

"Just because the Crusaders lost doesn’t mean it was a shocker" - as a passionate 'saders fan I believe this statement to be factually incorrect.

Its difficult to be sympathetic to Bryce Lawrence. He was a nightmare for Australia during 2011 because his loose style allowed sides with more physical forwards to dominate ours. This showed in the game against South Africa in Durban, which we came very close to losing, as the Bok forwards ran all over us at the breakdown - even though we usually won our games against SA. Then the pool match against Ireland we did lose - again because the Irish forwards were able to nullify us in a very loose and open breakdown. And then the quarter final against SA where the Bok forwards had us pinned in our own quarter for most of the match. There was only one area where we were ahead of them, which was that our fetcher was still on the field, and arguably that was the only thing that got us through that match. None of which is an excuse - truly class teams have the ability to size-up a referee's idiosyncrasies and quickly adjust to them, something Australia has been very bad at in recent years. But we won't miss Lawrence's extremely loose way of refring the rucks.

exactly, JON was doing his job, Bryce wasn't.

great post Biltongbek, spot on in my books.

The basis of your argument is still sound, I'm sure all of what Bryce said is true, in that John O'Neil put the pressure on, but so he should have. It was JON job to look after Australian rugby's interest, which in this case he did. The problem occurred when Bryce couldn't handle this pressure (by his own admission) and produced a very poor performance in a very important match.

let no one ever question JON's dedication to Australian Rugby. a patriot!!