A short history of world-class rugby referees saying sorry
The oddest quirk in the World Cup final was the initial feeling that referee Wayne Barnes, in what we now know was his last test, had apologised to Ardie Savea for a mistaken call that cost the All Blacks three points.
Savea, having seen how a replay on the stadium’s big screen in Paris showed he had given space after a tackle and shouldn’t have been penalised, appealed for a reversal from Barnes.
Barnes’ verbatim reply was: “Sorry, no, I didn’t see the replay. I didn’t see it come off enough.”
In hindsight, he was basically saying, “tough luck, I’m sticking with what I believe I saw on the field, that you didn’t quickly let the man you’d tackled go”.
History shows that a mea culpa from a top-level referee is about as rare as a blood moon. If a mistake is admitted, it can take a long while.
Barnes took 12 years before saying he’d made an error in the 2007 World Cup quarter-final in Cardiff when France eliminated the All Blacks.
“Of course it was a forward pass,” he told D’Arcy Waldegrave on NewstalkZB in 2019, when asked about a missed call that gifted the French a try and lost the game for New Zealand.
The list of world-class referees saying they got it wrong is short but the range is wide.
Paddy loses it
Kiwi Paddy O’Brien’s whistling nightmare happened in Toulouse when France faced Fiji in a 1999 World Cup pool game.
The former police detective was brutally frank in his 2004 book Whistle While You Work. He made an early mistake in the Fiji-France game, disallowing a try to France because he thought, wrongly, they’d indicated a kick at goal.
It got worse.
He thought a Fijian had knocked on and didn’t award a try. A couple of scrums collapsed near the Fijian line. He didn’t really know why. But he ran to the posts and awarded a penalty try anyway. France won 28-19.
Five years later, O’Brien offered no excuses.
“What happened that afternoon was a disaster. I couldn’t even begin to account for what went wrong.”
Call to wreck morning
In Sydney, the Crusaders lost the 2014 Super Rugby final with the Waratahs when South African ref Craig Joubert awarded a penalty against Richie McCaw in the 79th minute, which Bernard Foley kicked to give his team a 33-32 victory.
The next day, Crusaders coach Todd Blackadder got a phone call from Joubert, who said he’d looked at a video and wanted to apologise for his incorrect call, which cost the Crusaders the title.
“What can you say?” Blackadder said two years later, the result from that night in Sydney still burning. “All I could do was say thanks for the call.”
Admission as bad as denial
In the deciding test at Eden Park of the 2017 Lions series, French referee Romain Poite blew a blindingly obvious offside penalty for the All Blacks against Lions hooker Ken Owens.
Then after a discussion with assistant referee Jerome Garces, Poite changed his mind. He ordered a scrum instead.
New Zealand Rugby lodged a complaint with World Rugby. There was never a reply.
Finally, in 2021, Poite gave an astonishing interview; his call was wrong and it should have been a penalty.
Yes, he was wrong at Eden Park. Yes, it should have been a penalty kick for the All Blacks. Was he sorry? Not remotely.
“Many people called me after the game and told me, ‘That was a mistake, but it was justice, the right decision to make’. Even the World Rugby staff management gave me the same call.”
Possibly life or death
In the last test of the 1976 tour of apartheid-era South Africa, the All Blacks were leading 14-12 with eight minutes to go. Then referee Gert Bezuidenhout penalised All Blacks prop Bill Bush.
In his autobiography this year, Bush said: “I was hopping mad. I’d been nowhere near the ball, and nor had I caused any offence. My protestations, however, mattered little as Gerald Bosch kicked the penalty to hand South Africa a 15-14 victory and a 3-1 series win. I hadn’t done anything wrong, other than being a brown on a tour where several of the referees, like Bezuidenhout, cheated. That about sums it up. I am still brassed off about that decision.”
The most telling comment came when Bezuidenhout saw the team off at Johannesburg Airport the following day. Bush said: “We had him on, not only about his decision [in the last test], but a lot of others he made throughout the tour.
“His response was simple. ‘Listen, boys. You can go to your home but I have to live here!’”