Ref: ABs to blame for dodgy French try

The quarter-final referees will come from either Wayne Barnes (pictured), Craig Joubert or Nigel Owens. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Opinion

Barring a couple of minor quibbles, the referees have stayed out of the spotlight over the past week and that can only be a good thing.

While I might not completely agree with the way the laws are interpreted, as I have stated earlier, we are seeing consistency.

If there's been a stain on the game that has come into focus over the past week it has been the number and frequency of trainers entering the field of play. You could say that if the worst thing that's happening is trainers coming on to the field to treat injuries (real or imagined), then you haven't got much to complain about. You're probably right, but it is something the IRB must address.

I don't attach much blame to the referees in this case.

Referees are not qualified doctors so it is bloody difficult to assess whether players are genuinely hurt or whether they're just trying to slow down play.

On Sunday night, Scotland felt they were robbed of playing at tempo because of the amount of times Argentine bodies lay sprawled on the ground in the area where the next set-piece was meant to take place. Having said that, it was a tough, high-stakes game, and the fact Argentina lost two of their best players, Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe and Rodrigo Roncero, before halftime indicates they were seriously hurt.

That's why it is such a difficult balancing act for referees to assess what's real and what's glorified play-acting. All of which must be done by a ref while they're on the move trying to control the match.

That's why the IRB must take a stand and throw the onus back on the match managers who, it seems to me, spend most of their time running around doing nothing. The refs have got enough on their mind without having to worry about sneaky trainers. It should be the match manager controlling the sideline and making sure trainers are only entering the fray for genuine treatment purposes, not just administering water and throwing out coaching instructions.

We've seen an occasion in the Fiji-Samoa game where a quick tap was taken and the player had to negotiate not only the opposition defence, but a couple of trainers, too.

Trainers are not the only way teams try to slow the game down. We saw another example on Saturday night, when the All Blacks tried to get an explanation from Alain Rolland on a ruling, I suspect, so they had time to marshal their tryline defence. Rolland instead allowed France to take a quick tap anyway and Francois Trinh-Duc scored.

If it was the winning and losing of a knockout match, you can imagine the fuss that would have been kicked up. But the simple fact is this: Rolland never called "time off" and every coach knows that one of the first lessons in Rugby 101 is never to take your eye off the play.

Rolland, by virtue of getting that plum fixture, must be favourite to get a quarter-final. Bryce Lawrence, too, has been handed a number of high-profile matches, so I expect him to suit up for a quarter-final.

I think the remaining two quarter-final referees will come from either Wayne Barnes, Craig Joubert or Nigel Owens.

* Kelvin Deaker is a former international referee