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Round 2 of the Rugby Championship at the weekend featured two French referees – Romain Poite who controlled the All Blacks-Wallaby international at Wellington, and Jerome Garces the Argentina-South Africa clash at the exotically named Estadio Padre Ernesto Martearena in Salta.
Neither played a part in deciding the outcome, but their vastly different attitudes governed the ambience.
Poite is the boss of every game he controls, the 30 players on the field are there just to prove the point, he’s full-time arrogant, and a right royal pain the butt.
Ignoring Wallaby captain Stephen Moore, but listening to opposite number Kieran Read was blatantly obvious and is at the centre of an ARU complaint to World Rugby.
Wallaby legend Tim Horan is never anything but fair-minded, but he tweeted “Hey ref… there are two teams playing tonight”
Garces is exactly the opposite, he’s there he have fun, he smiles a lot, and it’s infectious with players smiling as well, even when they’ve infringed and penalised.
Garces has form.
He reffed the upset of the Rugby World Cup last year when Japan came from behind to beat the Boks 34-32 after the bell with a superb try in the left hand corner.
But it wasn’t just the finish, the whole game was brilliant as Garces remained smiling in the background, playing advantage as much as possible.
So what will SANZAAR do with Poite this time?
Is it too much to ask they rub him off the elite panel?
They never did it with similar refs Andre Watson and Jonathan Kaplan who ruled the roost for far too long.
Watson reffed the 1999 World Cup final forcing Wallaby captain John Eales to confront Watson with “If you don’t stop the French from eye gouging and squirrel gripping, I’m taking my team off the field, and you can sort it out with the IRB.”
Suddenly Watson refereed what was in front of him, and the Wallabies won 35-12 going away.
Kaplan was worse.
In 15 Super Rugby games he controlled home and away, the Waratahs won just once at home.
In 17 games Kaplan was in charge, the Brumbies won just six.
Whereas Jerome Garces is the closest to my best referee of all time – Peter Marshall.
The former Manly centre who teamed up with Englishman Clive Woodward in the middle to late 1980s, turned to refereeing on retirement to officiate in the 1999 and 2003 Rugby World Cups on his way to refereeing 30 Tests.
His motto was “Enjoy every game as if it was your first”.
That he did, and so does Jerome Garces.
Romain Poite wouldn’t know what the hell we are talking about.