Of the many things that have irritated me about New Zealand's World Cup
exit, nothing has angered me more than seeing the head of the IRB's referees
and his cronies in Dublin telling us to "grow up" and that Wayne Barnes
should be left alone.
According to Paddy, the referee and officiating did not play a major role in
the outcome of the quarter final and the IRB does not have a significant
refereeing crisis.
The IRB even issued a press release overnight saying they backed the
appointment process 100 per cent.
In other words, they backed a process that placed a World Cup knockout final
match between the Tri Nations champions and the Six Nations champions in the
hands of a 27-year-old who controlled his first test just this year.
They backed a process apparently that flawless it decided a referee with just
11 tests to his name was more worthy of the match than...well, where shall we
start, Jonathan Kaplan, Tony Spreadbury, Chris White, Alain Rolland, Joel Jutge,
Alan Lewis, Marius Jonker Stu Dickinson ...
It is disturbing to see this sort of decision-making, let alone the level of
ignorance from Paddy and company since in defending the guy's performance.
Yes, a lot of questions are rightfully being asked of Graham Henry and his
All Blacks.
But there are two questions that every All Blacks fan has a right to ask of
O'Brien and his IRB buddies:
How can you turn away and say there is no problem with international
refereeing after a display of such profound ineptitude.
Pause and think about this for a moment.....including all of you who are
either gleefully rubbing salt into our wounds about being immature children, and
New Zealanders who are saying we should cop it sweet and belt up about the ref.
What sort of outcry would we have seen anywhere else in the world if the
match-winning play in a critical Champions League soccer clash/FA Cup
final/SuperBowl had been decided in such a manner?
Can you imagine what the papers in Australia would look like on the morning
following an NRL grand final if the premiership trophy had been won on a blatant
forward pass?
And herein lies the rub...it would never be allowed to happen.
The NRL premiership - a far smaller international sporting prize than what
New Zealand was playing for on Sunday morning - would never be decided in that
fashion quite simply because the officials and administrators are too smart to
let it happen.
For all the failings of the All Blacks in Cardiff, they were most let down by
the officiating and the IRB.
What is galling is that referees know that a yellow card in a big match now
has a major impact on a game. In clashes among the heavyweights, being reduced
to 14 men hurts more than ever.
Think Melbourne this year and Carl Hayman.
Given that development - which Paddy O'Brien knows full well of - in my view,
if a referee is going to bin a player in a quarter final knockout match, he
better be damned sure he's got it right.
McAlister's binning did not go even close to fulfilling that vital criteria.
It was an unreasonably harsh decision that O'Brien is now trying to justify.
Off goes McAlister, and the French score a vital try and kick a penalty to
shave 10 points off our lead.
When the IRB appointed Barnes to this game, I immediately thought: "Bernard
Laporte has got what he wanted".
Cast your mind back to Laporte's deliberate attack on Australian ref Stu
Dickenson in Wellington a few months ago.
Is it possible that Laporte has had a long-term plan to ensure that any
referee who controlled a France-New Zealand match at the World Cup could be more
easily manipulated or intimidated by him?
If so Paddy O'Brien - the same Paddy who assured us there would be no
whitewash of the Laporte attack on Dickinson and then promptly allowed exactly
that to happen - has played right into the Frenchman's hands.
Dickenson may have his critics but he's controlled almost 40 tests - and
what's more he's not easily conned by the likes of Laporte, as he showed by
standing up to him in that Wellington hotel foyer.
But Laporte won the final battle.
By a combination of histrionics and using his influence at IRB level, he
ensured Graham Henry ended up with exactly what he feared most - and
inexperienced European-based referee out of his depth.
The collective failure of the IRB and "Paddy's Process" cannot be excused
away or ignored.
It is profoundly unfair that players, coaches and administrators' futures can
be so dramatically impacted upon by such a blatantly poor officiating.
Here's a prediction.
Some time over the next year, the IRB will slowly (and quietly) usher in new
powers for the video referee allowing him to ensure this never happens again.
Barnes' failure to penalise the French for obvious indiscretions throughout
the second half smacked of a man too intimidated by the occasion to dare
penalise them and endure the wrath of the crowd - and Laporte (and contrast his
failure to mention the referee's performance versus his hysterical over-reaction
to Dickinson's display at Eden Park when the French lost by a huge margin).
The IRB has New Zealand to thank for carrying the game of rugby for close to
100 years. In all its seeking of sponsors and broadcasters for the World Cup,
All Black hakas and sweeping, brilliant New Zealand rugby tries repeatedly
dominate the IRB's pitches.
Our team subscribes to century-long values such as respecting the opposition
and never making excuses.
Henry showed amazing dignity in not attacking Barnes afterwards.
These are important qualities for a sports team to have and in direct
contrast to many other "flagship" teams in other sports.
What is our reward?
The public mugging of our jersey and the appointment of pasty-faced Pom
completely out of his depth to the most important game we've had to play in four
years.
And then afterwards we get Paddy and the IRB lecturing us on how we should
take defeat!
The same IRB who have spent hundreds of thousands ensuring Paul's Panel Shop
in Sandringham doesn't dare put up a sign during the 2011 World Cup linking his
business to rugby allows the most famous jersey in the game to be publicly
ambushed.
Right under their noses too.
The jersey fiasco should be laughable.
Instead it was a mini-tragedy that shows while the IRB might be happy to
trade off our mythology in swinging their sponsorship contracts, they actually
don't seem to give a toss about us.
We won our pool, France came second.
We get pick of the jerseys. Game over.
It's this sort of nonsense that drives Kiwis insane and why there is so
little respect within these shores for the IRB as an organisation.
But the most ignorant comments continue to come from Paddy O'Brien, a Kiwi
who should know better.
Paddy, we don't need you - with your head stuck in the sand in Dublin -
lecturing a wounded nation over our angst.
We have every right to be angry with you, your officials and your attitude
that everything is OK in the world of refereeing and the Kiwis are just
whinging.
To steal a current line from a TV commercial over here, it's not OK to keep
hearing you tell us you got it right. You didn't.
