THE FACTS
It says everything about rugby’s slightly warped values system that so many followers believe the real crime in the last minute of the second test between the Wallabies and the British and Irish Lions was not a poor decision by the referee, but the histrionics of Australian hooker Carlo Tizzano.
It’s warped because the sport appears to have an insatiable appetite for drama, but only drama of a highly specific kind that plays out to a well-rehearsed script.
What seems undeniable now is that far from wanting to rid itself of refereeing controversies in big tests, rugby wants to revel in them.
What else to think because no one with decision-making powers wants to learn from the past or plot a better future, and the game is trapped in this spiral of making the same mistakes.
Round and round it goes – with inexperienced referees appointed to take charge of the biggest games, TMOs given confusing and ever-changing remits, a refusal to unify the best officials under one employer, and a failure to align expectations across competitions and between hemispheres.
Rugby sets itself up to fail and yet is always surprised or enraged when incidents like the one in Melbourne on Saturday occur.
Shock horror, an inexperienced referee – in this case Italy’s Andre Piardi – ruled that there was no foul play when Lions flanker Jac Morgan made direct contact with the neck and head of Tizzano in a clean-out in the build-up to Hugo Keenan’s match-winning try.
Piardi is bright, he’s decisive and he’s going to be a good test referee – but his first major assignment was in last year’s Six Nations and his appointment for the Lions series came too soon.
Maybe not surprisingly, under intolerable pressure, he decided that Morgan and Tizzano arrived at the breakdown simultaneously and therefore the collision was fair.
He stacked his narrative up to at least give his decision an evidential rationale but the footage is beyond dispute – Tizzano won the race to the ball, he was legally over it, about to steal it when Morgan smacked into the back of his neck.
Under every interpretation of the law, it was a penalty to Australia and a huge learning moment in the career of a young referee who is perhaps being fast-tracked to promote a narrative that rugby has a greater geographic footprint than it actually has.
The shame of it is that Piardi was having a great game otherwise, and more important, the game had an abundance of drama – the good, compelling kind when live sport is at its theatrical best – and didn’t need a dose of self-inflicted controversy to have everyone hooked.
The farce of it was that after Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt expressed his frustration that such a critical mistake had been made, World Rugby chief executive Alan Gilpin called for more respect to be shown to referees.
He’s right to say that, but it is also ridiculous for World Rugby to make inappropriate appointments, manage the officiating the way it does, and then get all tsk-tsk with coaches whose teams are the victims of this continued merry-go-round of nonsense.
And the sadness of it was the way so many turned on Tizzano. He quite dramatically milked the moment with a bit of theatrics to ensure that by flinging himself back while clutching his head there was reason for the incident to be reviewed.
The fact he did that has seen him cast as the pantomime villain, but he’s not some rogue actor eroding the last of rugby’s Corinthian spirit of fair play.
He’s the product of the culture rugby has encouraged because of the grey areas around TMO intrusion, the volatility of having inexperienced referees in charge and the inconsistency of decision-making that results every time there is a head collision.
Rugby, whether it wants to admit it or not, has facilitated a culture of histrionics and built an appetite for players to try to dramatise – almost fictionalise – incidents to try to manipulate officials.
Those of a certain vintage will have indelible memories of football World Cups being dominated by players lolling around in supposed agony at the merest hint of contact.
Rugby is becoming much the same, but instead of hirsute, slightly effeminate South Americans doing the acrobatics, it’s chisel-jawed, oversized farm boys throwing themselves about.
In the 2023 Rugby World Cup final, several All Blacks players heard Jesse Kriel’s teammates tell him to drop after they realised that he’d been hit in the head by Sam Cane.
How often now is it the case that someone will kick high from the backfield and then tumble dramatically if there is any contact from a defending player?
And it has become standard fare now every time a try is scored for the captain of the team that has conceded the score to approach the referee and implore him to look for some perceived incident.
Rugby loves its drama, but it needs to be thinking more Netflix crime thriller than Mexican soap opera and to start making decisive and consistent efforts to fix its refereeing issues.
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.