Referee Hoffmann pays the price for his shocker in Sydney
the Cape Times yesterday said that Hoffman will not be handed the whistle for any of the remaining matches in the four rounds of the tournament, as well as in the playoffs.
Hoffmann had a shocker on Saturday, and possibly cost the Sharks at least a losing bonus point in that match. But it wasn’t the first time that Hoffmann cost a South African team possible log points.
Hoffmann copped a lot of stick on social media following the Stormers’ defeat to the Hur- ricanes in Wellington on Good Friday. During that match he was inconsistent at the breakdown, and missed a plethora of Hurricanes’ mistakes. He was heard apologising to the Stormers for missing a knock-on from Hurricanes captain Conrad Smith when the visitors were 5m out from their opponents’ tryline. The Hurricanes countered up-field and went on to score.
Sanzar’s Game Manager, Lyndon Bray, a former referee himself, has obviously had enough of Hoffmann’s blun- ders, while television match officials George Ayoub of Australia and New Zealander Vinny Munro have been complety dropped from the roster for this weekend’s matches.
“While we acknowledge that the match officials cannot get it right all of the time, there are some basic standards that have simply not been upheld over this past weekend, resulting in some disappointing decisions and selection consequences,” Bray said in a statement yesterday.
“A thorough and robust sys- tem is in place whereby the development and performance of each match official is reviewed by Sanzar and its member unions on a daily basis. And like any athlete participating in elite competition, our referees are accountable to performance levels for the competition.
“Appointments are made weekly based on performance reviews from the previous round but also includes an evaluation of the current form of each official over the term of the competition.
“We have completed our reviews from the weekend and have followed strong internal processes as we prepare our team to reach their physical, mental and technical peaks as we head into the critical last four rounds of the regular season and Super Rugby Finals Series.”
South African referee Stuart Berry, who came under fire in the match between the Stormers and Brumbies for not dishing out more yellow cards to the Australian side after some cynical play at the breakdown and deliberately collapsing the scrum on their own goalline, will be in charge of the Cape side’s match against the Rebels at Newlands on Saturday.
However, coach Allister Coetzee says they have no qualms with his appointment.
“I’m very happy with Stuart Berry,” Coetzee said yesterday.
“We are playing a team who play positive rugby and a team who also want to use the ball. “It should be a nice game of rugby.”