Boyd ponders ref situation
The Hurricanes beat themselves in yesterday’s Super Rugby semifinal.
They had the talent and the opportunity to blow the Lions off Ellis Park. Instead their title defence ended in a rather limp fashion, as a 22-3 lead became a 44-29 defeat by fulltime.
The Lions were quite good and will give the Crusaders a decent go, in next week’s decider. But the occasion will be enhanced by not having an all-south African crew doing the officiating.
The Hurricanes felt the Lions were awarded two dubious tries and coach Chris Boyd, flat out, doesn’t reckon first five-eighth Beauden Barrett deserved a 59thminute yellow card.
"There's three clearly dominant referees in Sanzaar at the moment and I think they probably could've used all three in a slightly different way." Chris Boyd
Those decisions changed the momentum of the game and were made by a quartet of referee Jaco Peyper, touch judges Rasta Rasivhenge and Marius van der Westhuizen and TMO Marius Jonker.
It’s not enough to be fair in these games; you have to be seen to be fair too. Fifty-fifty calls are inevitable, but they’re more easily digested when there can be absolutely no suggestion of partiality.
Surely it’s to everyone’s advantage for there not to be hometown refs on these occasions?
‘‘It’s an interesting question,’’ Boyd said. ‘‘We shouldn’t need to do that but at the end of the day, whether it’s sub-conscious or it’s just a style, the Kiwi referees will get used to the New Zealand style and the African referees the African style and the Aussie referees the Australian style.
‘‘I think it’ll be interesting around that space. To me, there’s three clearly dominant referees in Sanzaar at the moment and I think they probably could’ve used all three in a slightly different way.’’
Boyd went on to say they were Peyper, New Zealand’s Glen Jackson and Angus Gardner of Australia. Jackson did the Hurricanes’ quarterfinal against the Brumbies, and probably shouldn’t have, while Gardner would be many people’s pick to now do this year’s final.
You could argue, however, that he’d actually be rocking up in Johannesburg a week late.
Hurricanes captain Dane Coles said after the match that Peyper was a good ref, who does a good job, but that the team saw a couple of incidents differently to him in this game.
Again, the Hurricanes ought to have been good enough to turn their first-half dominance into a win, but they weren’t.
Now it’s the Crusaders’ turn to see if they can.
‘‘They [the Lions] opened up pretty easily in the first 20 minutes; we created five or six clear, and fairly simplistic, opportunities and I think the Crusaders can do that as well,’’ said Boyd.
‘‘It’s not a bridge too far for them but it’s going to be a big challenge and probably the number of All Blacks forwards in their forward pack is potentially going to stand them in reasonable stead.’’