MAILBOX: Blame it on the ref?

Australia's heart-breaking 22-19 Tri-Nations loss to South Africa in Cape Town at the weekend has brought about mixed emotions from the participating team's supporters. While some Wallabies fans take their hats off to the Springboks, others point the finger at referee Wayne Barnes and his less than impressive performance with the whistle...

Admittedly, the Boks are not as good as many South Africans would believe. But do you really think the Boks are peaking at the moment...? Surely not.

I think back when Planet Rugby described the "unstoppable Blues and Crusaders" earlier this year. The Bulls, on the other hand, were described as "plodding, hapless and one-dimensional, and playing a type of rugby that is outdated for the Super 14".

How strange then that later in the tournament they thumped the Blues, destroyed the Reds and prevented the Crusaders from scoring a try in the semi's. And, of course, the Bulls won the Super 14.

The Australians didn't win in Newlands despite:

1. The Boks messing up many opportunities and not scoring.

2. The Boks still not playing well as a unit.

3. The Australians' best effort since forever.

4. A referee making shocking decisions including the obstruction try and sending Pierre Spies off wrongly.

5. Losing the captain early in the game (always a big disrupter)

6. Leading for most of the game, yet losing it at the end.

So, as a South African fan I am under no illusion that the Boks are not playing the best rugby they can yet. But I'm still saying that if the Boks can gel together as a team and play to their potential, they can overtake the All Blacks. There is no "rule of the universe" that the All Blacks should be the best team. In fact, Samoa can decide to become the best team if they want to. I think the Boks have worked hard to catch up with New Zealand, and this will be a very interesting year.

- Abraham

Do we have to keep putting up with shocking referee displays such as that on Saturday? How many times did Australia slow down ball at the rucks illegally, with hands in, falling on the ball, not rolling away?

I think there should have been at least two yellow cards against Australia (Barnes warned them repeatedly), but instead we saw one against SA for a third offence, which was a bit confusing because I must have missed the other two. Australia got given a try with a blatant obstruction by Guy Shepherdson, how the ref missed that is beyond me as he was right there. We also saw Australia collapse just about every maul that South Africa put together, but the ref only took offence to this in the 71st minute.

Australia was off-side so much, and the ref failed to spot that as well. All these offences are termed professional fouls, and apart from a shocking referee display, it was quite obvious that Australias game plan was so close to cheating that I would love to have seen what a proper referee would have made of their tactics.

As for South Africa, the forwards were exceptional at the pick and drive, but lost too many line-outs, and they still seem to struggle in the front row, but managed to secured alot of ball to give to a static and uncreative backline, who just could not come up with anything to break a good Aussie defence. I understand that referees need to ref big games to get exposure and experience, but, maybe Wayne Barnes needs to cut his teeth on some smaller Southern Hemisphere games, maybe Super 14s, as I and many others felt he was way out of his depth.

- Rod Minter-Brown

Heard a shocking amount of whining from commentators (unfortunately a lot of it in Afrikaans) and journalists in SA on the refereeing of the opening tri-nations game last weekend. Even by South African standards, this was inappropriate.

Looking forward to your incisive analysis and comments and hope you

a) put a few commentators on the spot and b) give us the objective

analysis and insight so we might all learn from the refs brilliant, not so brilliant, or even downright poor officiating.

It is a part of your web site that I really enjoy reading - and I think you have made a huge contribution to the game by informing fans about the rules (the real ones - as opposed to what we think we remember from our school days)

- Carl

Well, typical Aussie "sportsmanship". The Aussies threw everything into their attack on the bok line but the Boks held them out. To all intents and purposes the ref may as well have put on a gold jersey. The only Wallabies try was blatant obstruction, they were 'lucky" to have it awarded. The Boks generated more opportunities and on another day the scoreline would have been totally different.

The loose play was a joke as the ref allowed the Aussies to do as they pleased, yet he threw the book at any South Africa infringement. Being English, maybe he was trying to revenge England's last two defeats at the hands of the South Africa.

One thing is for certain, something must be done about the scrums. It can't be that a side with a poor scrum can be allowed to get away with not contesting at the scrum. The Aussie performance was pathetic at scrum time.

- Sebastian Prinsloo

The Boks did not play well and the Aussies played out of their skins (tackling). Still not enough to beat South Africa at home. Beware when this Springbok team finally starts to put it together.

Wallabies for the spoon this year.

- Alan

I think we were lucky against the Springbok side?

We ran obstructive lies (disguised as decoy runners), on numerous occasions entered the breakdown from the side and were lucky not to have a player sent off for professional infringements in the dying minutes of the game.

I just hope we recognize the ref was inexperienced and let us get away with a lot that other refs won't. I hope we don't read this game and think we are now competitive. We have lots of work to do to get to the potential I know we have.

- Gordon

I totally disagree with the assertion that the Australian scrum only performed well because of "questionable tactics". For once this did not appear to be the case. The SA scrum just isn't that good and Australia is performing better in this area.

- Michael Balleine

I enjoyed the game and well done to the Boks but your report doesn't reflect the game I watched. Your report on the game seems to be one sided to SA, but it was only the first fifteen and the last fifteen odd minutes that SA were pushing the Wallabies, outside that I would say the Boks were lost and Wallabies had the more structured game.

The scrums were even, line-outs went to SA but not by much and the so called physical advantage of the Boks was entertainingly absorbed by the Wallabies.

Your article reads how unlucky the Boks were not to win by more points, and how lucky the Wallabies were to lose by so little. I am looking forward to your report on the next game.

- Peter

Schalk Burger is the last person I would pick as man of the match because he should have been 'villain of the match'. How he remained on the field for the entire 80 minutes is beyond belief. Every minor incident he was right in the middle and in some cases even clearly attempted to eye gauge.

He should have been carded at least once and perhaps should be cited!

- Andrew

Great game- crap refereing. Devious tactics from the Australians.... not that I'm bias!

- Joe Kridge

What a game! Best game of physical and tactical rugby I have seen in years. As a Wallaby supporter disappointed to lose but thought our boys played best I have seen them play since 2001 and we had our best defence since the 1999 World Cup. Keep it up and Bill will be coming home soon! Congratulations to the Boks for a hard fought win.

One compliant though:

Can we pleased be spared of any further northern hemisphere referee appointments for Tri-nations?

They just don't get it! I reckon any Bok or Wallaby fan who watched that game yesterday would agree.

NO MORE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE REFS FOR TRI-NATIONS GAMES PLEASE!

- Mark (Canberra)

Ollie Le Roux must be choking on his pies after the Wallaby pack and smashed the Bokke at the breakdown and all over the park. Janie de Beer student Steyn saves the day in final minutes and the result is not a massacre but a close and gusty win to SA. Good on them and hats off to the Australians for showing up with pride in the gold shirt.

- Blair Burchill

Firstly as a Springbok supporter I'm happy to have got the win. I think however the score wasn't a true reflection of the difference in the two teams. Lets face it, the wallabies spent most of the game defending. I thought the referee was very poor. He didn't control the game at all, he certainly didn't have any control over the scrums and wasn't that great around the rucks and mauls either. Don't even get me started about the whole rolling away from the tackler business!! I also couldn't work out how everytime we won a line out, the wallabies managed to collapse the maul by putting a few guys on the ground so there was no way the boks could move forward without tripping over them. Is that legal?

We do have a lot of work to do though and not taking anything away from the wallabies, they defended well but again the refereeing at the breakdown was very poor as the Wallabies were offside on a number of occassions. While we're on the subject of the ref, I thought the Wallabie try was suspect with the usual Wallabie obstruction taking place!!

I don't know why the Springboks seem to want to play this route 1 game as they looked very dangerous out wide as well. Unfortunately Jean De Villiers repeatedly seams to be a very poor finisher when he makes a break. How many times in last years tri-nations did Jean break the line only to make a poor decision, either trying to skip pass or go on his own? The same happened this game.

At the end of the day I thought the Springboks were by far the better team and the Wallabies were lucky to be in the game - and I can promise you, I have the utmost respect for Australia, they play very intelligent rugby but I can't recall there be any moments of brilliance for Austrilia, perhaps a few Guitau breaks. There were several from SA - Jean's break, Monty's chip and chase, Spies had some great carries toward the end, Skalk was excellent and of course Steyn prooved he can't be left out the team. I'm sorry Ashwelle, you blew your chance as you weren't very impressive.

Overall I'll take the win - lots of room for improvement in both camps and the boks will have to play a hell of a lot better next weekend to beat the All blacks. I haven't checked yet but lets hope we don't have a debut ref again. Very very poor refereeing.

- Reno

As usual I actually felt that SA Rugby will show us something new despite all the warning signs. After all here was a manager with the very best Super 14 players at his disposal and who was very vocal about his opinion on how things will go this season. He even won out against the political powers in the battle over the ("he-is-not-good-enough-to-play" - White) Watson saga this last month.

So here we are, having just won against Australia. Should I celebrate?

Let's review what happened on the field with these "invincible" SA players today. After the first 20 minutes and excluding the last 10minutes, not much. Watching the Springboks watching the Wallabies play ball, was highly highly frustrating. It's not that they were not good enough or strong enough, its just that no one has informed their coach that he cannot rely on throwing Springbok fodder at the opposition in the hope of making some sort of physical breakthrough - everyone in rugby, down to the most inexperienced international coach knows this game plan already, extremely well, after years of the same old same old. Does he not understand why we have been called the bruisers of international rugby for so long? There was no game plan, little individual brilliance, and no progress made since 2004, despite a lot of heart.

The times when things got very hot between the two teams, showed just how much frustration these champion players of the Super 14 felt with no plan to get beyond the advantage line, and score tries. O, sorry, no, there was a plan, my apologies to the Springbok coach, sadly just the same plan he has had since 'inventing' the rush defence. Whether we won or lost today made little difference to me, what was much much more worrying is that this team has nothing special other than powerful players, some of the best individual skills we have seen in years and a clue-less coach! This when our greatest opposition is fielding a most innovative and brilliant team. Next week will be a bloodbath unless a miracle happens and someone gives Jack a thinking brain. Thus far all he has shown us is that he has jack-sh*t to offer!

- Johan de Lange

Though due to geographical reasons I can't get to watch the games, it is good to follow the games on Planet Rugby. Great service. But not as great watching the Wallabies being beaten by drop kicks again. Shades of their loss in the last World Cup Final.

If I didn't know any better I'd say the Boks planned it, just to rub the Wallabies nose into it.

A Jock, living in New Zealand, working on the Indian Sub Continent.

Good one.

- Gordon