What is Rugby?

For the first 60 minutes, it was a mostly lopsided contest today with South Africa showing the visiting British & Irish Lions why they are the Rugby World Cup champions. From the scrum to the line-out, the home side outplayed their opponents at essentially every phase of the game.

The most obvious example of the mismatch was the inability of England’s Phil Vickery to compete in the front row against Tendai ‘The Beast’ Mtawarira. Victor Matfield was also a constant interruption for the Lions line-out.

Penalties also played a huge factor in the match, with the Lions conceding numerous penalties.

This type of match demands a lot of the match officials, but it appears that today, they were not up top the challenge. It started early on when the Lions, behind 7-0, broke the line and Ugo Monye rumbled over the try line in the corner. As the grounding was questionable, the referee right called on the Television Match Official (TMO) for clarification.

In a rather unorthodox move, New Zealand referee Bryce Lawrence did not consult with the Assistant Referee, but rather instructed the TMO to check every aspect of the video, including whether the ball carrier had entered touch (the exact job of the Assistant Referee). After a long delay and much confusion, South Africa were awarded a 22m drop-out instead of the Lions receiving a 5m scrum.

Given that the match ended 26-21 for the home side, this decision is a critical error that could easily have changed the outcome of the match, especially since the Lions were clearly doing well when they could see the touch line.

Lawrence later called a penalty against Paul O’Connell for not being on his feet while rucking after a tackle, even though O’Connell never left his feet.

Finally, when running down the sideline on a kick return, Lawrence whistled play over even though the Assistant Referee had not signaled touch.

For such an historic and lucrative match, it is hard to comprehend why the top referees in the world such as Mark Lawrence. Jonathan Kaplan and Alain Rollandare are not managing the 3 Lions tests.