Cooper yellow card could have left Aussie fans seeing red

Problem with NH refs is that they seem to think they have to engineer drama. See Barnes' last PK to Wales and Owens' last PK to ABs - both against the team in possession, and on review, no different to the previous couple of hundred tackles all let go. However, while Barnes' management style is generally his strength, his accuracy lets him down - often picking up the 2nd and third infringement. Still, I'd rather have him than George Clancy, whose management AND accuracy are both appalling. That guy shouldn't be allowed within a 10km radius of a Test ever again.

the card was a joke, barely a penalty, now let's move on

Where was Barnes or touch judges when Cooper was blatantly stomped by some Welsh thug? S T

Barnes was fine. The penalty count against the Wallabies mirrors other matches and isn't a one off. That's expected when you have 3 backrowers trying to pilfer and there should have been a yellow in there given the constant ruck penalties. Cooper was probably scape goated for that but it's scant consolation to the Welsh as it was too late. I don't like Pollock's refereeing particularly at scrum time but he did penalise the Wallabies heavily against Ireland would have been more had he spotted the obvious professional fouls while Ireland were on the attack in the Wallabies 22 and Genia's blatant crooked scrum feeds.

It worries me that the TMO viewed multiple super-slow replays to decide that the tackle was marginally early. When viewed in real time it looked fine. Remember the player tackled had his body between the ball and Cooper's line of vision, so he could not have reasonably been able to see whether or not the player had the ball when he made the tackle - only that the ball had been passed to him. It was marginally early when viewed in super slow and made by a player unsighted. Harsh.

You can see it wasn't the Boks you were playing, otherwise the suspensions would have totalled up nicely ;)

Apologies, I misread/understood where you were coming from. Regarding the victim mentality, I agree with the sentiment, but am feeling a bit agreived considering 4 australians have been stamped on in the last 7 matches for a paultry 1 weeks total suspension!

I said it probably wasn't the same "while arguably more clear cut". What I was trying to say is that you can see consistency of intent, and particularly on cynical red zone infringing which is one of the things that most annoys me. I agree the IRB needs to do something about ref standards in general, but we need to watch the victim mentality and continual whinge after each game too.

@ Uncle Argyle : Well Hartly's defence was that he called the opposite front row (forgot exactly who) a cheat ; WB assumed it was aimed at him. there was a precurser , as there were few penalties that went against NH which Hartly as captain questioned WB. the issue for WB was , he did not like being questioned !!! Imagine if the SH refs adopted that stance , what a farce the RC would have been. credit to refs like CJ , CP , and even NO , et al who despite the controversies had good rapport with captains. e.g. like the "that was last week Jean" to JDV after a tackle by Read. must say the guy who reffed the Babas match had a smile thruout. Some of these English refs need to lighten up a little. Like the great football ref Colina said " a ref has done a good job if people talk about the match and not about him!"

You cannot seriously say that QC's bees-dick marginally early tackle of a player on the twenty is the same as deliberately slowing the play of the ball on your goal line when you have few defenders to stop the almost certain Wallabies try. QC's ealry tackle did not prevent a probable Welsh try as there were at least two more Wallabies ready to tackle the ball carrier. WB is out of form and listening to him during the match continually gave inconsistent messages to the players about staying on their feet then allowing squeeze ball by the Welsh at least 30 times, preventing access by the Wallabies forwards. Then in the second half, in the Welsh 22, Mowen? had tackled a player, was on his feet by himself contesting the ball for about 2-3 seconds before the Welsh supporting players finally reached the tackle. He was cleaned out and when he protested to WB was told "if you survive the clean out you get your reward" - utter BS, thats not the law or the guidelines. As refs we are obliged to follow the laws and the guidelines published, not what we feel is the way to do it - otherwise inconsitencies between refs will be complained about by the public even more.

Despite some criticism (as expressed above) I thought Barnes did a good job. Can't say that he gets the credit for the absence of scrums except that he did play advantage well(and always does); the players are to be praised for their skills. Cooper's early tackle probably saved a try...yellow card may have been better than that. Barnes also refereed the U19 World Cup final when Australa, captained by Saia Fainga'a, beat New Zealand in Dubai a few years ago. He did a good job there too.

No I meant Barnes sending him off I'm the quater final.

I can;t remember the names involved, but he penalised an Aussie for not rolling away, then immediately said to one of the Welsh players to stop lying on top of the man! So who was the offender in that situation? Not the Aussie.

I thought it was marginal when I watched it live. But after replaying it several times on Tuesday I had to accept it was reasonable. It's strange how much I miss on Tv and only see when I watch the match a second or third time. Would never have seen Phillips stomp on Quades hand, no doubt deliberately from an offside position, had another roarer not pointed it out. Tough job in the middle. Barnes did pretty well.

Can't agree. Rugby is about teams playing the sport. Wayne Barnes has always been about Wayne Barnes. The absolute worst kind of Ref

No thanks. An Auckland Blues player that went to Sale after 2007 RWC as a real young man. Went back to NZ for 2011 RWC but could not make the team. Fundamentally the NH had ruined any ability he might have had.

We Aussies need to stop the ref bashing. The card on Quade was probably over the top, but Barnes sending off the Welsh player in the 1st half (while arguably more clear cut) demonstrates his attempt at consistency over cynical red zone infringing.

Refereeing Rugby is never easy, I have read many comments here on the Roar that are full of the emotion and passion that rugby naturally stirs up in all of us. Try refereeing before you put the boot into the ref. I think we all need to learn the laws of the game and be a little objective. I thought Wayne Barnes did allow the Welsh to use a lot of squeeze ball which prevented the Wallaby forwards from pilfering, and thus allowing the Welsh forwards to get to the rucks albeit sometimes of their feet. However I still think Wayne Barnes is a great referee and manages the players better than most. For example the Irish referee who did England V Wallabies treated the players like naughty schoolboys and let the pommy forwards not release the tackled player and the arriving forwards fell all over the place.

Seriously, is this an article? A couple of paragraphs with little to no opinion or comment apart from the obvious. I also disagree with the comment "deserves great credit for the way in which he allowed the Millennium Stadium spectacular to flow" as with many of the other NH refs he allows teams to seal early to prevent a decent ruck contests in many of the breakdowns. It seemed that the Welsh (and Wallabies to a lesser extent) were allowed to drive in over their ball in the ruck and drop off their feet, with many red rucks looking like a game of "stacks on" rather than a group of players contesting the ball on their feet.