Officials apply common sense to help epic contest flow

Thankfully, in contrast to the opening Test of the last British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand in 2005, there can be few complaints regarding the performance of referee Jaco Peyper and the rest of his officials. Rightly, the conversation will centre around an excellent Test match as opposed to any glaring missed decisions.

The first 20 minutes of the most eagerly anticipated Test of the year went by in a flash, and importantly with almost no incident. There were great passages of play, and a fantastic tempo.

Both teams played their part but it was the experience, general nous and most of all proactive refereeing of referee Peyper which allowed the game to get going from minute one.

What was evident for me was that he was very much applying the de minimus principle and using common sense to focus only on what was relevant, and less on the smaller issues.

I thought New Zealand pulled a line-out maul down close to the line which went unpunished in the first five minutes of the second half, and perhaps some clean-outs from the attacking side were missed as the game wore on.

That said, I loved the way the referee allowed the turnovers to happen and did not oversanitise the breakdown. There were great advantages and good communication between officials and the TMO for the All Blacks’ second try by Rieko Ioane regarding those two areas of contention, the potential knock-on by Kieran Read and the finish.

As the Lions fatigued they gave the All Blacks way too much quick-phase ball and weren’t able to slow anything down which allowed New Zealand to get their world-class attack firing.

What I also found very interesting was that the TMO, George Ayoub of Australia, seemed to come in unprompted and advise the referee of foul play incidents which may not have been picked by the on-field team of three officials. As long as those inputs are accurate, it allows for greater fluidity in the game and can be a huge help to the officials down on the field.