SANZAR has stupidly threatened the integrity of the qualifying finals this weekend between the Crusaders and Bulls and the Reds and Sharks by appointing two South African referees to officiate in matches involving two South African sides.
Spiro Zavos, The Roar
This stupidity runs against all the history and protocols of most major international sports where neutral referees are required for the big finals.
It is unthinkable, for instance, that a New Zealand referee, say, would have been appointed to referee the final of the 2011 RWC tournament when New Zealand played France.
Heineken Cup finals, too, are refereed by neutral referees. This system of neutral referees is long-standing (aside from Super Rugby) and is fair and is seen to be fair.
On Monday, though, SANZAR’s game manager, Lyndon Bray (an excellent referee in his day) announced that the South African, Jaco Peyper, will be the referee for the Crusaders–Bulls match, with assistants New Zealanders Keith Brown, Glen Jackson and TMO Garratt Williamson: and that South African Jonathan Kaplan will be the referee for the Reds–Sharks match, with the South African Craig Joubert an assistant and the Australians James Leckie (assistant) and Matt Goddard as TMO.
The justification for these appointments, according to Bray, is that the two referees fulfilled three key criteria – overall performance, accuracy of the big calls and the ‘right fit for the game.’
Pardon my french but this is codswallop.
To begin with the last criterion first: Kaplan is well past his prime as a referee. How he can be regarded as the ‘right fit’ for a match between two sides that like to run the ball and play at a high pace is beyond my understanding.
Peyper being a ‘right fit’ for the Crusaders–Bulls match is even more objectionable. Peyper refereed the Bulls–Crusaders match at Pretoria earlier in the year. This match is infamous for the fact that the Crusaders were leading comfortably around the half-way mark when the Bulls forwards Flip van der Merwe and then Chiliboy Ralepelle claimed they were eye-gouged.
No evidence of the eye-gouging was produced, either to Peyper on the field and to the citing commissioner, who confirmed there was no case for the Crusaders to answer as the Bulls had not offered any evidence to support the on-field claims of Bulls players.
It is history now that on the back of eight successful penalties out of 10 shots at goal, Morne Steyne kicked the Bulls to a 32-30 victory.
Crusaders were unhappy with Peyper’s refereeing performance and demanded an apology from the Bulls for their offensive claims
We need some history to understand the implications behind the ditching of the neutral referee protocol.
In 2007 the South African officials were in control of the SANZAR refereeing appointments. They listed 10 front line referees, six of them South African. They also said that the practice of neutral referees would be dropped for pool round matches. They implied that for the finals the neutral referees system would be used.
In fact, local referees were used for some of the finals with Jonathan Kaplan refereeing the Bulls versus Chiefs final at Pretoria.
As someone has pointed out, how would the Bulls react if Bryce Lawrence had been appointed to referee the Crusaders versus Bulls qualifying finals match?
Now the referees appointments are controlled by the New Zealander Lyndon Bray out of Auckland. Unfortunately, he has continued with the practice of ignoring the well-established and long-standing practice of having neutral referees for the finals matches.
I have consistently argued that this is unfair to the referees themselves. They should never be exposed to unfair accusations from parochial and biased supporters. This, in turn, disturbs the notion that justice must not only be done but should be seen to be done.
This is an unacceptable stuff up on the part of SANZAR.
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July 18th, 2012 at 7:48 am
okay I get what he is saying. And agree with him that a neutral ref should be appointed. But for flying fuck sakes, get over yourself. Offensive claims? Bullshit, excuse the pun, they were eye gouged by someone, both had the marks to prove it, there was no video evidence, but that doesnt mean it didnt happen. Fool, go play with your toys, mommy is calling you.
July 18th, 2012 at 8:54 am
Well Spiro given that NO NZ refs were appointed for the Four Nations and only ONE Ozzie ref, it should tell you that they could not appoint neutral refs from NZ or Oz because they are SHIT!
July 18th, 2012 at 9:12 am
Reply to Morné @ 8:54 am:
Indeed… beat me to the punch…
Furthermore Spiros is the last punter to be preaching ‘neutrality, objectivity nor any other synonym of the like’…
July 18th, 2012 at 9:15 am
Reply to Morné @ 8:54 am:
which Ozzie ref would that be? Walsh??
July 18th, 2012 at 11:09 am
Two years ago the SANZAR panel announced an elite ref system would be used and no longer a “neutral system”… where was this dork then…
Geez the more I see of Spiros’ writing the more I dislike him.
I once saw him at a game between the Boks and NZ in 2006 at Ellis. All the Aussie newsies laughed at him behind his back because he still uses a note pad and pencil and not a recorder.
Ancient old codger is about as useful to rugby union as Stephen Jones.
As Morne said. There are no good Aussie and Kiwi refs…
July 18th, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Reply to DavidS @ 11:09 am:
It’s such a pity the Kiwi/Aussie Zavos has become such a bitter old man… he’s a great published rugby historian…
Methinks somewhere along the line a Japie knocked his missus up…
July 18th, 2012 at 6:02 pm
What neutral referees?
Australia and New Zealand shares a culture, a language, a region, a mother country, a titular head of state, a defining historical moment, has almost identical flags and an unusually free exchange of citizens.
Non of this they share with South Africa.
If the integrity of the contest was your concern and neutral referees were essential to this, then surely you would not want a referee from New Zealand or Australia, to officiate between teams from South Africa and Australia or New Zealand.
If the integrity of the contest was your concern then surely you would not want a system where some teams will have to cross 26 to 30 time-zones in 3 weeks only to reach the final, while others may comfortably stay inside 2 or 4 time-zones.
July 19th, 2012 at 4:16 am
OK so you guys don’t like Spiro. The trouble is he is right. There is so much emotion and blame the ref crap attached to these games when “supporters” can’t accept their team lost. You would have thought that SANZAR would have taken that out of the equation by the use of a neutral ref. Timeo what you say makes sense to a Saffer but try explaining that to a kiwi or aussie – the 2 countries do share a lot but there is nothing as competitive as any aussie – kiwi sports match. This week’s trans Tasman netball final in Melbourne (incidently involving 2 Saffers in the rightfully revered Irene van Dijk and Ilana de Bruin) is a case in point.
July 19th, 2012 at 4:21 am
I suppose the use of Kaplan and Peyper is just cost cutting by SANZAR seeing as they were both here in NZ for last week’s games. Anyway we got the better of the 2 refs here in CHC. I have been impressed by Peyper so far and he has received recognition from the journo’s here whereas Kaplan didn’t exactly have a great game getting in the way of the Chief’s defence and deferring to the TMO when the action was happening right in front of him in Wellington last week.
July 19th, 2012 at 9:31 am
SANZAR elected the “elite panel” system… they must stand or fall by it.
Peyper and Kaplan and the like have been reffing matches all season long with no issues.
Now suddenly the arch SA hater whinges…
July 19th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Reply to out wide @ 4:16 am:
I don’t doubt that kiwis and aussies compete ferociously against each other but when South Africans are involved it’s not their competition any more. They have much more in common with each other than with saffas, so the unconscious bias (if you believe that is a problem) will come out.
Spiro believes the unconscious bias is a problem but his proposed solution does not solve his problem it exacerbates it.
For the reasons I’ve listed, a kiwi will tend to favour aussies over saffas and an aussie will favour kiwis over saffas.
Furthermore, because of our own rugby history, a saffa may favour kiwis over aussies.
Fixing the the nationality of the referee, like they did under the previous system, will over time cause these small biases to add up into a large benefits for some and large burdens for others.
The current system is better because they use the best referees which should keep the unconscious biases at a minimum. Also by randomly mixing the nationalities, the left over biases will tend to cancel out over time.
July 20th, 2012 at 10:07 am
Good one Timeo.
Correct
The mixing up of refs in this way will eventually result in the biases being “mixed out” over time simply because the refs will have to because they get more used to reffing in formerly “non neutral” GAMES