Just the solution for our referee problems

On Tuesday SA Rugby sent out a release announcing Jaco Peyper will referee the Currie Cup final. That is hardly a surprise as he has been South Africa’s No 1 ref for quite a while now and has handled three Currie Cup finals.

But, sadly, his appointment isn’t really about how good he is, but rather how bad the rest are.

I haven’t spoken to one person who watched the two semifinals last weekend or seen one message on this newspaper’s letters page that had anything good to say about the two men in charge: Marius van der Westhuizen in Durban and Egon Seconds in Cape Town.

And I’m not saying that wearing any provincial cap whatso- ever, but purely because the two spectacles we watched could have been even better had the two men had more of a clue.

In Durban, Van der Westhuizen and his linesmen missed a late tackle from a Sharks player during the first half; in the second half players had to plead with him to review an off-the-ball infringement, which eventually led to a penalty that both he and his linesmen missed.

Then he made a mess of a lineout, during which he adjudicated Warren Whiteley to have knocked the ball when he clearly had not.

It takes a lot to get the mild-mannered Whiteley worked up but that is exactly what happened as he had to listen with disgust to the ref’s call.

Van der Westhuizen incorrectly awarded a five-meter scrum to the Sharks, from which they scored a crucial try, and that was basically game, set and match for the Lions.

That is not taking away from the fact that the Lions played poorly, but stating they were hard done by and we were probably robbed of a more dramatic finish.

It was the very same Van der Westhuizen who got so much flak for his handling of the Stormers’ Super Rugby match against the Reds at Newlands this year and had former Springbok Dawie Snyman calling for him to be banned.

This time around in Cape Town, Seconds was also in the firing line after Western Province’s win against the gritty Blue Bulls, with Province coach John Dobson getting hot under the collar.

During a Bulls attack that went on for umpteen phases, he called on the TMO to review a potential incident, but it seemed the two weren’t on the same page and eventually the TMO just gave up after reviewing “the wrong footage”.

It was a crucial stage of the game and a possible vital decision couldn’t just be left out there.

The biggest joke was the review of Scarra Ntubeni’s late tackle on Dayan van der Westhuizen.

After the prop lay on his back for minutes after the tackle, Seconds awarded the penalty in the wrong spot and then had to ask the TMO to point him to the right spot – and guess what? It was pretty much where the prop had stayed down all that time.

Another press release this week announced that SA’s leading women’s ref Aimee Barrett-Theron will officiate in the November international between the US and New Zealand in Chicago.

There’s the answer. If we can’t find decent men to blow a whistle, give Aimee a bigger role than B division matches in the men’s game.