Gregor Paul: Painful officiating must be fixed

Romain Poite wanted to check everything with TMO George Ayoub during the All Blacks' win. Photo / Getty

This World Cup has so much going for it that it feels wrong, almost churlish to be having a moan about it. But it's impossible not to be beyond frustrated at the officiating.

Someone needs to get a grip on this before the tournament grinds to the quarter-finals with half the world nowhere to be seen: out walking the dog or building a new shed. Doing anything other than watching games that have become interminable.

The opening game thought it had set a hard to reach benchmark for TMO interference and time total time taken. But then the All Blacks played Namibia and the bar was raised higher.

Painful. Excruciating even. The game can't be refereed like that or everyone will die of boredom. It's not a case of the World Cup deserving better - it has to have better or the feel good sweeping England will suddenly stop. And not many people will be feeling so good.

They will be feeling quite bad in fact. Angry, irritated and demanding to know why it is - who it as well - that has decided each and every decision has to be made by committee.

Players, coaches and fans all want to see the right decisions being made. But not at the expensive of losing the will to live in the process. There has to be a better balance to be struck than the one that was on view at Olympic Park.

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Romain Poite and TMO George Ayoub wanted to check everything and then do it again. The maddening part was the Poite seemed to be perfectly placed to make on the spot calls and yet without fail, Ayoub would either take or be asked to take responsibility for any decision that Poite felt could be contentious.

It's fair enough seeking video evidence to check a try has been scored, but what's with this obsession now of having a quick look at nearly every breakdown to see if there was foul play?

That's the killer. Not just in the time it takes but for what it is robbing from the sport. There will be a bit of physical stuff at the collision area - nothing serious, a bit of a shove here, a grapple there. It's a tough sport and no one minds as long as fingers stay out of eyes.

But that's not happening at this World Cup. Anything remotely aggressive is being pinged by the TMO and players have to be wondering why?

They are more concerned, though, by the culture of checking and double checking when there is no obvious reason to do so. Referees might say they will be pilloried for getting it wrong. Which is true, they will be.

Now they might feel like they are being pilloried for taking too long. Which they are. Somewhere in the middle lies their path to least resistance. They should follow it. The World Cup will be so much better if they do.