The title says is it all to be honest, I've never seen a referee be as one sided as this game. I was absolutely dumbfounded after watching the South Africa vs Ireland game, it was supposed to be a massive clash between two giants of the game, yet all we got was the referee making mistake after mistake after mistake. Also conveniently all those mistakes happened to go against the Springboks, the ref simply ignored anything that Ireland did wrong.
Where to start? How about Ireland's first try, let's look back a few moments before that. Kolbe goes for an up and under, which South Africa regathers when Pieter-Steph Du Toit takes it, and loses it backwards, yet the ref somehow says that South Africa lost it forward, so he gives scrum to Ireland. SO let's go to the scrum, they have the feed. The springboks pressures their scrum, their scrumhalf is under massive pressure and in the process of trying to pass, Jaden Hendrikse hits his arm and he knocks the ball on. Yet, the ref somehow says Hendrikse lost it forward. So Ireland gets the the scrum again, the get the feed. Immediately after the feed, their Tight head collapses the ball, his head hits the ground immediately, while Steven Kitshoff is still up because he did nothing wrong. Yet, the ref somehow makes up a penalty and says Kitshoff went down, despite the evidence completely contradicting what the ref saw. So 3 crucial mistakes in quick succession, surely it can't get worse, but it does. Ireland gets the Lineout, off the lineout the ball goes to Sexton, who gives a massive forward pass when he got hit by Jesse Kriel, the ref just ignores it. They then go on to get another penalty which leads to their first try. So 4 crucial mistakes by the ref, all against the Springboks, gives Ireland a free try.
Then later in the game the following happens. Ireland kicks the ball, Damian Willemse regathers it, he gets tackles. Ireland now tries to counter ruck with their hooker, Dan Sheehan, who then puts his boot out and kicks the ball out of the ruck. Ireland then regathers, and goes on the counter attack. The ball goes to their prop, Andrew Porter, who gives a questionable pass that looked forward, to Finlay Bealham, who passes it to the backline. This whole move ends up in Ireland scoring their 2nd try by the likes of Mack Hansen. The ref then asks the TMO to just check if they didn't go in touch when they turned the ball over at the ruck. He completely ignores the ball being kicked out or the potential forward pass.
Then the ref's inconstancy truly showed it's colors at the end of the game. Franco Mostert makes tackle, he then gets up to start counter rucking, while counter rucking, he kicks the ball out the exact same way as Dan Sheehan. Eben Etzebeth picks the ball up with nobody in front of him and support players to the right of him. Yet, the ref penalizes Franco Mostert for kicking the ball out. So how on earth can the ref defend his decision if he complete ignored it when Ireland did it? How is it possible for an international referee to be this one sided in a massive game like this?
Dear World Rugby, You should be embarrassed by the performances of Nikola Amashukeli, Stuart Terheege and Andrea Piardi. The only one who remotely deserves any praise is the one French AR, Mathieu Raynal.
