How referees blew the World Cup

Too much say in the outcome of matches

HOPEFULLY the seventh Rugby World Cup will end today in victory for the only unbeaten side in the tournament, the All Blacks.

That, at least, would provide a satisfactory denouement to a disappointing tournament - both from a South African perspective and for the game of rugby union as a whole.

The worthy gentlemen of the IRB will doubtless declare the tournament to have been an unqualified success, but the unavoidable truth is that the World Cup was not the compelling spectacle it is meant to be.

For that, one has to blame the referees who ruled and eventually ruined the tournament. Far from being the most captivating and complex of team games, the rugby on display was dull, dominated by defence, choked by negativity and dependent on the kick.

Referees were too central, too important, too crucial to the flow and outcome of matches but one has to hasten to add that it was not their fault.

Blame lies squarely on the shoulders of administrators who have allowed the way the game is controlled to drift so far from its own grandly labelled edicts, "the laws of the game", that it is now refereed by whim and interpretation.

No wonder players and fans are puzzled. No wonder so little positive rugby is played. No wonder the aberration of a Bryce Lawrence occurred.

No wonder referees, the horribly exposed instruments of the lawmakers, are unfairly denigrated.

There is no doubt that the laws, as we understood them to be during the Super Rugby tournament, changed significantly once the tournament got under way and conversely the biggest indictment of what went wrong was the deserved appointment of Craig Joubert to handle the final.

If one referee, Lawrence, can "blow" a player like David Pocock as he did in the SA versus Australia quarterfinal and another, Joubert, can control the same player quite differently and then be appointed to referee the most important game in the last four years it can only mean that Lawrence got it very wrong.

There has been no acknowledgement of this by officials, and there won't be, but there is no getting away from the fact that referees did and do not have a clear and consistent understanding of what they were "meant" to do.

Consistency is all everyone involved in the game - especially coaches and players - desire and it is now time for the IRB to address the issues once and for all.

A moratorium on amending the laws was instituted until after the World Cup and now it is time to have a massive re-think of especially the laws governing the breakdown to ensure a uniform, easily understood game in which referees can simply "apply" the rules rather than make subjective decisions.

A few seasons ago, the law makers did institute the ELVs (Experimental Law Variations), which received varied reactions, but the project was not inclusive enough.

What is needed is a worldwide panel made up of current referees, coaches and (especially) players to address the problem areas to come up with a set of statutes that are easily understood and easily applied so that the basic tenet that "rugby is a game in which the object is to carry the ball over the opponent's goal line and forced it to the ground to score" is restored.

It certainly is not acceptable that in the two semifinals as well as one quarterfinal of the tournament only one try was scored.

We need to get back to a game that, in the words of Dr Danie Craven, is a fair contest for the ball played by players who are on-side and on their feet.