Refs under spotlight
THE RWC has been marred by some controversial calls by some prominent referees who I had a lot of respect for because of their performance.
During the Fiji vs Australia match Kiwi referee Ben O’Keeffe from NZ copped a lot of criticism after he failed to send Wallabies winger Reece Hodge to the bin with a red card for a reckless challenge that left flanker Peceli Yato concussed.
With Yato off the pitch, Fiji lost their biggest threat.
O’Keeffe eventually showed Hodge a yellow card and decided that no further action was required.
This action meant that the match officials at the RWC showed themselves a yellow card after reviewing the opening round of matches and this prompted World Rugby to release a statement that referees’ performances were not consistently of the standards set.
Furthermore, the referees, touch judges and TV match officials met Alain Rolland, World Rugby’s high performance manager for match officials, and agreed to go public with an admission that they should have done better.
In a statement released by World Rugby, they admitted that directives laid before the tournament, especially those concerning high and reckless tackling and policing the offside line, had not been followed rigorously enough.
Hodge was later suspended from the RWC but the end result of O’Keeffe’s blunder was that Hodge scored Australia’s try that brought them back into the game and the Wallabies overcame a Fijian scare to win their opening match in Sapporo.
Against Wales French referee Jerome Garces could not control his emotions and failed to show a red card to Ken Owens, who made a reckless tackle on Bill Mata.
Garces also failed to send Patchell to the bin when Fiji was awarded a penalty try and with 15 players on the field Wales gained courage to outpace Fiji.
Had Ken Owens being shown the red card Wales would have had to play with 14 players for about 50 minutes and this would have had a huge bearing on the final outcome.
It’s a shame that leading referees have been the cause of our controversial losses at the hands of Australia and Wales.
I hope our team manager highlights this issue and I hope World Rugby will ban referees who cause such disasters so this could be a learning lesson.
Thank you Fiji for your efforts! RAJNESH ISHWAR LINGAM
Nadawa, Nasinu