The referee made bad calls both ways. The All Blacks won convincingly and South Africa are next to fall! Suck it up and do your talking on the field, rather than reminiscing over what-ifs and if-onlys.

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PHIL - You are a trifle sensitive. I am addressing the inconsistencies of reffing here and it is insufficient to be accepting of this. The fact that the All Blacks played magnificently in preperation for their tour to SA is good - as they will need it in SA. There is no what-ifs and if-onlys - only the final score. Now pitch up and let’s get on with the game.

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Veldsman is in the habit of making huge refereeing blunders and not only from the TMO booth. He’s even worse with a whistle at his lips. How the devil did he progress so far up the reffing ranks? He’s as woeful as poor Linston Manuels.

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Over the years there has been numerous occassions when a Tappe Henning and others also made such glaring mistakes, but it never evokes any scathing attacks on his refereeing abilities. However as usual sports personalities of colour ie, players, referees, coaches are always lambasted on all blogs. I just wonder what the sickly lot of Springbok supporters would have been doing if Mr Barnes refereed in one of their mathces at the 2007RWC, and made the same glaring errors, as he did in the ALL Blacks-Tricolours match. I, suppose the old ARCH ENEMY, England would have been blamed. It is common knowledge for any person with any brains, that just as important as it was for Italy to win the last soccer world cup to save Italian soccer after the big matchfixing scandal in that country, so important was it for SA to win the 2007RWC, to prevent a black takeover of rugby in this country. World sport is clearly not sport anymore. The old adage that applies to nations will also apply to sport, namely ” Every nation that has fallen, has fallen from within”. Nag ou grote.

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STANFORD - More Boet! Tappe can be pleased that he reffed in an era that did not have the scrutiny of the 12-18 cameras on the game as they do today - then with slo-mo, then with highlights - that goes on and on.

I am not sure I understand your 2007RWC point and takeover theory - but then I must not have any brains.

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I have to say I do not feel this was Mr Lawrence’s best game. He had a glaring miss which led to a NZ penalty when Ali Williams was a mile offside and intercepted a tap down on the Aussie lineout, he allowed too many hands on the ball which slowed the game down plus he tolerated way too much handbagging. In the end I think the better team won but some early major gaffs by the ref put the Aussies under a lot more pressure than they should have been. As far as the TMO call the guy made a great break and a superb run and deserved the try. Finally, that was quite a big conspiracy theory posted, me thinks he may have read a few too many Tom Clancey novels.

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Don’t forget Lawrence was extremely pedantic with the walllabies lineout, even when the sides were neatly apart, out came his mental set square and suddenly the wallabies are 2mm too close. When every Kiwi under the sun is raving about the performance of the ref, you know it stinks.

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MR-ED - We have a HUGE problem for tomorrow by the name of WAYNE BARNES -a young POM referee extrodinaire - more comfortable with MIXIT than ELV’s.

Last week in George WAYNE BARNES refereed the ELVs for the very first time - and struggled as one might have expected he would.

The Pumas have trained under the new ELVs for some weeks now, but not a single member of their side has played them under match conditions.

Then the Boks have not played under the set of ELVs that will be used, as this will be the set of ELVs that will be used in the Global trial which started in August the 1st.

Confused?

The Pumas are happy with some ELVs , like the five yards from the scrum, but admit that they will have to concentrate on intricacies such as the line outs,
falling back from short-arm free kicks,
utilising those short kicks themselves as a reaction and ……………..
kicking to touch from their own quarter.

Expect Barnesy to be blowing his short arm and long arm rulings all 80 minutes.

I give the total penalty count at around 40 - one every 2 minutes.

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Expect Barnesy to be blowing his short arm and long arm rulings all 80 minutes

Hoping the lotto that is the short or long arm penalty will be resolved. The refs are having plnety of “senior moments” deciding which is which, but i guess thats to be expected in the first trial. No excuses for the lineout rubbish though. SA wlll be too tough, even with a clueless Pommy running things

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Well I wanted to give Barnesy the benefit of the doubt - he will apply to the London Philarmonic on Monday

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Just thought you’d like to know that the referees in the Magners League (in the UK) are sponsored by SpecSavers!!

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GLYN - It gives hope to us all that there are people around with a sense of humour. Though it does make you wonder that McGeehan of the British & Irish Lions has nixed South African refs for the 2009 tour. Good that he does it early before it becomes controversial.

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I can understand the use of neutral refs for the test matches, as per normal. But it’s a bit much to expect it for the provincial matches too, and somewhat disingenuous to ones hosts. Afterall, it is expected that the referee will favour the home union

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