World Rugby's big problem in the wake of All Blacks-Lions draw

Referee Romain Poite made some calls that bemused the All Blacks. Photo / Brett Phibbs

It will be a test of rugby's collective maturity in the wake of the series between the All Blacks and British & Irish Lions to confront sensibly the giant issues that exist with the cluster problem of an ambiguous rule book and officials that are too prone to making avoidable errors.

All anyone really wanted to do post series was be able to cherish the combat, the skill, resilience and bravery of both teams and yet such a pleasure was effectively denied by decisions made by the referees in the last two tests that were so difficult to understand, so inconsistent and random that they can't be ignored or dismissed as irrelevant.

The All Blacks don't want to become a team who give the impression they only lose or don't win because they have been robbed by the officials. That's not the narrative they want to promote. They were confronted by an excellent Lions side in this series and weren't good enough to put them away.

It's that simple and yet it's not. The facts have to get in the way of this story and for all the blown opportunities, for all the tries they could and should have scored, the series still came down to the All Blacks being denied either a legitimate penalty or advantage in which Anton Lienert-Brown was going to score under the posts.

The choice for World Rugby seems clear - bury their heads in the sand, suggest the All Blacks are the only ones worried about officiating and that may because they didn't win or confront what surely everyone can see which is that drastic, immediate action is needed.

The danger for World Rugby if they chose the former path is that they will encourage a number of undesirable behaviours.

The first is that it will be hard to retain feelings of integrity because when three of the four match officials review to death one incident, agree it's a penalty for the referee to inexplicably and without explanation award a scrum, it is so random that it invites dark thoughts.

The week before in Wellington, TMO George Ayoub was obviously being ignored by referee Jerome Garces and then after the game, the judiciary rejected the citing of Sean O'Brien with no explanation behind it.

Again thoughts of a conspiracy are hard to reject as paranoid and ridiculous. Rugby doesn't want to be going down this path where it can't explain or justify the actions of key officials.

Perhaps, though, the bigger worry in the wake of this series is that cynicism was richly rewarded.

The Lions were terrific. They defended supremely well, attacked with poise and vision and deserved their share of the series.

But they played a cynical hand in the second and third tests that was unquestionably smart, but still cynical. They conceded penalties in Wellington as a way of shutting down the All Blacks' attack game.

They sensed that a yellow card wasn't forthcoming for repeat infringements so they kept going. Smart but cynical.

The penalty that won it for the Lions in Wellington was fair, but it highlighted that the rule about playing players in the air needs some extra clause because the danger now is that teams try to manufacture scenarios where they jump for the ball and invite contact to milk the penalty.

The penalty they won to draw level in the third test should force World Rugby to send out an edict to referees that they can't reward halfbacks who throw the ball at opposition players who are not actually interfering with play at all.

Lions halfback Rhys Webb won the decision when he pretended Crockett, was illegally blocking the pass to first-five Johnny Sexton.

Halfbacks around the world do that every week and World Rugby has to be strong, empower referees to either say play on if they believe any player has falsely manipulated a situation with the intention of winning a penalty.

It is decision time for the game's governing body. They so nearly had the perfect series. They so nearly had the final game they wanted to promote the unparalleled brilliance of international rugby at its best.

But the dream scenario was one minute short of being fulfilled and instead of reviewing the magic of the action, the unavoidable truth is that all the focus has fallen on the officiating and their chronic failure to make the right call.