After Australia suffered a narrow defeat to Wales on Saturday, largely due to the decisions taken by the match officials, Dave Rennie could no longer hold back. Rennie calling the decisions of TMO Marius Jonker 'horrendous' as he vented his frustrations, and rightly so. For the second week in a row his team has missed the mark and both times it has come down to the calls made by the men in charge.
If anything, what Rennie has done is worse than that of Rassie Erasmus. He went directly to the media, called out the officials and directly pointed out their errors, also a violation of Rule 18. Make no mistake though, I am fully behind Rennie but it will be curious to see if he faces similar sanction to that of his South African counterpart.
“I thought some of the decision making tonight by the officials was horrendous,” Rennie said on the TV coverage.
It played a big part in the result. Kurtley Beale got sin binned for slapping the ball down. They did the same thing and it clearly goes forward and they get seven points out of it.
Obviously really disappointed by the result. We’ll end up getting an apology next week no doubt but it won’t help the result.”
World Rugby in deciding to let referee Nic Berry off free from reprimand has sent out a strong message to the rugby world and set a dangerous precedent in the same breath. Clearly they are of the belief that their match officials are beyond reproach, even when they make in excess of 23 errors in a single day. Such failure to do their job will always influence the outcome of the fixture, and this was clearly the case again in the Aus v Wales game.
World Rugby may have had a far smaller headache from the South Africans if they had punished Erasmus and at the same time reprimanded Berry and ensured that he was upskilled going forward. What did World Rugby do though? The old boys club simply chose to address the symptoms, instead of examining the cause.
There is no doubt that 2021 has seen some shockers by the match officials, what it hasn't seen is any accountability from World Rugby nor those officials. A small apology a week later in the corridors and away from public scrutiny won't help anyone. Maybe WR doesn't realise that the teams and all the players and staff they consist of, also base their livelihoods on these performances and their outcomes.
Rennie said "there was no doubt he would face sanctions for his comments, but how do I support our team? By biting my lip again and us getting apologies during the week? It doesn't change the result."
"I felt it was important that I spoke my mind. I've been a professional coach for over 20 years. I've never gone in the media and had a crack at a referee or the referee group. I felt I had to tonight."
Dave Rennie is the latest coach to vent his frustrations and its only going to become more common, until the poor officiating is addressed. With all the technology available to officials when making their on-field decisions, there is simply no excuse for these errors. So World Rugby will you stand u and fix the problem? or are we waiting the vilification of another frustrated coach?