Did Hartley deserve his 11wk ban? Most probably. Previous record for foul play including eye gouging and biting, definitely no stranger to the judiciary and well known to have control problems, and you have to have some sympathy but any captain should know better. No small ban and missing a career highlight Lions' tour must hurt but he was warned. Maybe back to the psychologist for him.
To the actual detonator...a missed penalty in the dying seconds of the 1st half. Time runs out before the 22 is taken and Barnes repeatedly tells Myler he can't kick the ball directly out(some understanding for Myler here, he didn't disregard Barnes' orders...just clearly misunderstood). Barnes said the "ball must be played". Forgive me, ...isn't kicking the ball playing it? Regardless if the ball is kicked directly into touch it has been "played". Is it a penalisable offence? In the normal course of a game the opposition would get the choice....restart or scrum. So, that being the case, time up when the kick was taken, shouldn't Barnes have blown for halftime? Or was the better option to get on his high horse, take that PC Plod/school teacher attitude of his, talk down to the players and award a possibly match deciding(in the end, match defining) scrum to the Tigers? The resulting scrum penalty right in front of the posts was enough to make most players lose their cool, Hartley had no chance. The Saints battling well to stay in the game til halftime to restrict Tigers to a 13-5 lead suddenly had another thrown 3 on top. The resultant "You fuckin' cheat!" was clearly aimed at Barnes despite Hartley's insistence it was directed at Tom Youngs (much like his earlier excuse). Hartley deserves the rap for that. Barnes deserves the rap for it getting to that.
We aren't talking bout whether Myler's direct kick to touch was cynial or negative, or that Barnes had said he can't do it. We are talking bout who was wrong and who was right. I don't know of any rule that says that Myler could not kick that ball directly out. To me,....Barnes just pulled another one out his arse. Then again, could be he was right. But it was clear Myler misunderstood....just have another 22.
For the last few seasons the fishheads in the officiating swivelchair boardrooms have been trying to take match results out of referees' hands....to get away from controversial match deciding, championship losing calls. They aren't getting anywhere. And they never will until they use some commonsense when making the rules, and get some whistle blowers who actually have some commonsense when ruling on them. Even if you fixed problem 1, it wouldn't be enough. The current match officials aren't up to it.
Better than the current crop...
You can't take groups of men that aren't up to playing a certain sport, then give them a whistle and ask them to officiate soemthing they were never capable of playing. And certain whistlers are bigger than the games they control. Be interested to know if there was one Super rugby player who thought Steve Walsh was a great guy? "....Gee...can't wait to have a beer with Steve after the match!".....Nope....can't see it.
Wayne Barnes...just another idiot with a whistle.
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