He is quite right….you could look at any ruck and find something to penalize. They have to make head contact a yellow….sure….but leave the definition of head contact to the referee, and throw out these ludicrous mitigation rules in favor of common sense.
Trouble is Wayne Barnes may be the world’s best ref but the decision is being made by a set of arbitrary rules administered by a guy behind a tv screen who is not one of the 50 best refs in the world.
Yes, let the ref make the on field calls. We have all this "forensics" now as he aptly calls it and what it amounts to is the most controversial final in World Cup history and a referee getting death threats for stuff he didn't even make the call on because the general rugby public is too stupid to understand World Rugby's machinations.
Apparently it's not even the TMO who called the red, there's another foul play review panel or some such to which that decision is referred after the TMO cites it. It's a convoluted mess. Facebook was littered with pics of Barnes showing the red and getting absolutely smoked for it when the call was two sections removed from him, he had nothing to do with it. But it's not those people copping the fallout, is it? It's the errand boy in the middle.
This is not moving the game forward.
The red card was the right call. The yellow for Kolisi was harsh.
Barnes should though never have allowed the kiwi try. How did he miss that. He also missed a bad forward pass that allowed France to knock out nz is a past RWC. Was he paying them back for a past error?
Thank goodness for the TV refs though as they, in the vast majority of cases, help get the correct decisions.
Excellent point, he has read it exactly how it should be, skill in understanding the rugby spirit of the law/rule versus the letter. The initative to interpret should be given to the appointed ref. I think that's why Nigel Owens, Derek Bevan, Fleming, Kaplan and Andre Watson were such good refs...they appeared to be men of integrity coupled with this understanding.
I might add, so was Craig Joubert. It was just unfortunate that the 2011 RWC final was questioned and so was the Scotland/Australia match. All refs are human and all make mistakes. Craig is an unquestionable man of dignity and integrity. I surmise he was a little sensitive about this which led him to retire from rugby union and change to 7's rugby reffing.
Referees must be respected, you cannot have peanut gallery hooligan mentality like this.
https://youtu.be/z97pfB8F8Ho?si=Hs4mBXKBcUFssgiO
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Short and to the point, and yes, shame on World Rugby for throwing their officials to the wolves like this .