Wednesday, October 10, 2007

rugby fallout from bad to worse


Paddy O`Brien is a Kiwi referee and is the referees manager for the Rugby World Cup. So I assume he knows the rules of the game. Of NZ/France ref Wayne Barnes, he says, "He has our complete backing. We will not defend wrong decisions and Wayne did miss a forward pass, as did his two touch judges. But his missed forward pass did not cost the All Blacks that game."

You may recall yesterday I noted that IRB instructs the linesman - otherwise known as touch judges - that they are not allowed to intervene when they spot a forward pass.

Some sports journalist should ask O`Brien how on earth touch judges can "miss" a forward pass when they are not allowed to intervene when do spot one, even if the ref doesnt spot it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think there can be all sorts of things read into this.

Personally I think if you have three qualified referees then they should be a team for the betterment of the game.
3 pairs of eyes instead of 1, it stands to reason.

telling two of the three not to communicate what they see to the other doesn't.

It might even be considered unprofessional.
Unl;ess you believe conspiracy theories?

MikeNZ

Anonymous said...

I think you might be misrepresenting the situation a little. According to Graham Henry the touchjudges were told to only intervene in clear cases.

Anyhow,the bigger question might be why no,repeat NO, penalties were given to NZ in a second half where they dominated possession and territory