Did Barnes get the key calls right? Our forensic look at THAT crazy finale
Former Welsh referee David Bodilly took charge of games at international, European and Pro 12 level. He writes a column for WalesOnline and here, looks at Wayne Barnes’ officiating from those controversial 20 minutes of overtime in Paris at the weekend..
MOST of us have never seen anything like Saturday’s events in Paris. There were 20 minutes of overtime, but Wayne Barnes actually stopped the clock for chunky periods during that.
In real terms, France versus Wales ran close to 30 extra minutes and certainly caught the TV schedulers off guard. They even had to delay the kick-off in Dublin to wait for the Paris encounter to finish.
During that extra half-hour, how many minutes of rugby did we actually have. Two or three at the most?
Various accusations have been made in the aftermath and invariably some of the focus falls upon Barnes. That’s the blame culture. Wales lose, somebody has to be at fault - blame the referee.
I’ve heard it said that Barnes lost control, that this sort of ending must never be permitted to happen again, that the refereeing was a farce.
But I’ve poured over the video of what happened - and my verdict is that Barnes did very little wrong.
Here are the main incidents and my take on why the referee got it pretty much spot on, give or take a couple of decisions that might, but only might, have gone either way... 79.23: Too much weight at the scrum - free kick to France This is where it starts when France have the first of many scrums and Barnes pings Wales for ‘too much weight’. That means an early hit, something I’ve stated in previous columns that Barnes is particularly hot on. Wales and France would each have been aware of that.
The protocol at scrum time is crouch, bind, set. You are meant to do it together. The Welsh front row went marginally early. They knew France had dominance in this area, but an early hit destabilises the scrum. If Wales had got away with it, and managed to get an early shove, they would have disrupted the French.
Milliseconds make such a difference at scrum time, but Barnes was having none of it. Shortly afterwards, he was to ping Wales once again for ‘too much weight’, but this time awarded France a penalty instead of a free-kick.
Inconsistency? No. I will explain why when we come onto that incident. 79.47: The Atonio incident Suddenly, for seemingly no reason whatsoever, the French medic appears on the field of play and looks at tighthead Uini Atonio. Barnes looks a little perplexed and the medic disappears as quickly as he came on.
Barnes asks Atonio FOUR times ‘Are you injured?’ as a good referee should. He then says ‘He’s not injured, okay, let’s go’.
The scrum goes down again and Barnes tells the front rows ‘I need higher and I want more space.’ What he means by this is that when you bind, your shoulders should be above your hips. If the front rows are too low, they’re more likely to just fold in and it’s impossible to see who brings it down.
Suddenly the medic is back on again and informs Barnes that Atonio needs to go off for a head injury assessment. From my point of view it looked dubious, while Rob Howley complained about the integrity of the game being brought into question.
But Barnes does everything by the book. Once again he asks the question four times, this time of the medic. ‘Are you telling me as a doctor he needs a head assessment?’
Under those circumstances, he has no option but to let Atonio go off and Rabah Slimini come back on.
I have sympathy for Howley on this one. He talked of the build-up to how this substitution took place and perhaps he has a point. Let’s just say eyebrows were raised as Atonio left the field.
But Barnes had to go on the word of the doctor. Imagine the fuss that would have been caused if he hadn’t, and something bad then happened to Atonio?
I do sympathise with Howley. But I’d also like to point out that in my view coaches right across the world instruct their players to gain an edge by bending the rules. Gamesmanship, call it what you will. But it’s only cheating if you get caught. 81.30: Lee’s yellow card Samson Lee is yellow carded, quite rightly so, for not rolling away in the tackle as France try to crash over the line. It is clear and obvious, the correct decision by Barnes. In fact, he could have penalised two or three Welsh players at that point, including Leigh Halfpenny.
We then have a five minute delay as Barnes goes across to the reserve official to ask if Tomas Francis had gone off earlier injured, or replaced for tactical reasons. If you are injured, you can’t re-enter the field of play. Simple as.
There is clearly a language breakdown here as Barnes tries to get to the bottom of things. Significant because if Francis was injured, that would mean uncontested scrums, clearly to Wales’ advantage.
Let me explain what happens. The official on the side has a card with the players’ names on it and ticks a box about why they are replaced, and who is coming on for them.
A member of the Welsh management passes on the information and that is how substitutions take place, why you see numbers come up on the electronic board.
The language barrier causes the delay, but once Barnes is convinced Francis was replaced for tactical reasons, he is right to let him come back on and for the scrums to be contested.
Of course, Howley could have told Francis to go to ground at the first scrum, pretend he had hurt his knee and had to come off. Play France at their own game? Then we’d have had uncontested scrums, but that really would have been dodgy!! 86.15: Too much weight at the scrum again – so why a penalty this time? After one heck of a delay, it’s scrumtime again and Barnes penalises Wales once more for ‘too much weight’. Ie, an early push.
This time he gives a penalty, having only awarded a free-kick earlier. Why the inconsistency, I hear you asking?
The answer is simple. Under law the referee has a remit to turn a free-kick offence into a penalty if there is persistent infringing. Wales had engaged early before, Barnes wasn’t having any of it.
In any case, free-kick or penalty, it didn’t really matter because France were going to take a scrum once again, whatever. 88.39: Harsh not ten yards away call on Wales After various scrum resets and more penalties awarded to France, Louis Picamoles this time takes a quick tap and go. The ball is spread to the left and after a while you hear Barnes shouting ‘Not ten’ about the Welsh defence.
This is one of the areas where I felt he might have been a bit more lenient in his decision-making. You can’t be 10 metres back from a five-metre scrum anyway, so you stand on the try-line.
I believe the touch-judge made that call, but whatever we are talking about mere inches at most and perhaps Wales should have got away with this one. The France move was halted and it could have been game over. 91.29: Webb unfairly penalised? France drive for the line and their