Bizarre appointment highlights call for neutral refs

Jaco Peyper will referee the Super Rugby playoff match between the Stormers and Brumbies in Cape Town. Photo / Getty Images

What's wrong with this announcement? Jaco Peyper will referee the Super Rugby playoff match between the Stormers and Brumbies in Cape Town.

There'll be about 50,000 supporters packed into Newlands - with perhaps a smattering of Brumbies fans - delivering all sorts of advice to Peyper and his South African assistants.

Peyper is a tidy referee who has controlled internationals since 2011 and been in charge six times when the All Blacks have played tests, but never when they meet the Spring-boks. Such an appointment would leave him exposed to all sorts of accusations about prejudice or bias.

That's why country-neutral referees are chosen for World Cup and test matches and why that template should be repeated in Super Rugby playoff matches as well.

It's not as if cost is an issue for Sanzar. They had a ready-made solution.

Glen Jackson refereed the final pool game in South Africa between the Sharks and Stormers and he could have stayed on in the republic to take charge of Sunday's knockout match.

Subtle pressure is already coming on Peyper to bring a strong presence to Sunday's game.

Seven weeks ago the same sides met in their pool game in Cape Town with victory going to the locals by a point after a tempestuous second half when local referee Stuart Berry hit the visitors heavily.

There are hometown concerns about repeat tactics and Stormers coach Allister Coetzee has tapped into those worries.

"Jaco Peyper is refereeing the game and he is a ref who is prepared to make the big calls and ensure that a team does not keep transgressing in the same way," he said.

"We must just focus on our game and let the referee get on with it. If they transgress, they transgress, and hopefully the referee will look after that. If it's legal we don't have a problem with that, for you expect a quarter-final to be physically intense."

An all-Kiwi cast will control tomorrow's sudden-death match between the Highlanders and Chiefs and those teams, their coaching group and most spectators will be comfortable with those appointments.

Both sides are familiar with Chris Pollock and his work and will not be distracted into worrying about how an official from Australia or South Africa will make decisions in Dunedin.

No matter how Peyper performs at Newlands there will be doubts about the integrity of his performance.

He's not from Cape Town - in fact he was born in Bloemfontein - but he is South African and the Brumbies will look at him and wonder. So will the Stormers because Peyper may over-react as New Zealand referee Bryce Lawrence did in 2011 in his eagerness to show he was impartial, when he penalised the Crusaders heavily in the final against the Reds at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.