PHILIPPE SAINT-ANDRÉ was asked what he thought of referee Wayne Barnes’ performance immediately after seeing his side give away 14 penalties during their 18-11 defeat to Ireland.
The France head coach burst into sarcastic laughter, paused and then laughed again.
“Ah… I need to watch the game… I feel we were penalised a lot… We should have been better also.”
The refusal to comment any further perhaps made Saint-André’s point all the clearer, but there was frustration at the refereeing of this Six Nations tie on the other side of the coin too.
Ireland gave up 11 penalties to the French and had hooker Rory Best sin binned in a display that was uncharacteristically lacking in discipline. Under Joe Schmidt, one of the pillars of this Irish side is consistently strong discipline; yesterday was unsatisfactory.
“We wanted to go for it [in the final 20 minutes] but I don’t think our discipline was good enough today,” said openside flanker Sean O’Brien post-match.
I’m not sure of the penalty count yet but I thought it was over 10. That’s probably not good enough for the next day [against England]. That put us under pressure a bit, our own discipline, so we couldn’t really go after them.”
France managed to win at at least four penalties at the breakdown, the likes of Mathieu Bastareaud, Eddy Ben Arous and Thierry Dusautoir getting into strong jackal positions from which Ireland found them difficult to shift.
Captain Paul O’Connell hinted at a degree of displeasure at Barnes’ refereeing of this area, while also underlining the difficulty of the Englishman’s job with such an intense breakdown battle being played out.
“There was obviously a few scrum penalties, which when you’re in the second row it’s hard to tell what’s happening,” said O’Connell.
“But it definitely frustrated us. I think discipline is something Joe is big on and the leadership is big on, and I think our penalty count has been excellent in the last 18 months or so.
“So to concede the penalties we did do was frustrating and at times it was hard to figure out. I suppose we did have a little bit of an issue with trying to get access to the clean-out ourselves, whether they weren’t rolling away or were finding it hard to roll away. It’s hard to get through that player that makes the tackle to get in and clean them out.
That was one thing I found that was frustrating, but they’re a big side and good at the breakdown, good at the ruck. We’re good at the ruck as well, so from that point of view it’s a tough game to ref.”
This issue doesn’t simply start and end with Barnes and his interpretation of the scrum, ruck, offside line and the other laws of the game. We can safely say that Schmidt will go about highlighting each avoidable penalty during the video sessions at Ireland camp in Galway over the coming days.
There were certainly instances in which Ireland are right to feel aggrieved, but the moments in which rash decisions saw Ireland penalised will be scrutinised and dissected.
Schmidt’s desire for perfection from his charges extends to every penalty they give up to the opposition, every error of judgement in the area of discipline.
England will not be as forgiving as the French in a fortnight’s time.
Barnes was infuriating.
He was terrible yesterday, some of the crap going on at the ruck was chronic. Barnes is a clown.
why was nigel owens a linesman, surely he should have been ref..
The old joke that the only time Dusatoir was onside was for the national anthems certainly held true.
Barnes doesn’t seem to have any understanding of the breakdown. Some of his calls or lack of them at times was laughable.
Absolutely agree…
To be honest Barnes should have given France a straight red for the knee to healips back. The sooner Barnes is removed from reffing duties the better (and others too)
Why was Henderson penalised toward the end? I may of missed something obvious.
The ref repeatedly told him not to use his hands. You cant reach over a ruck, Henderson should have kicked it out or rucked straight over the ball and left it to the next man.
The trouble is I’m not sure Joubert will be any better… We should realistically be looking to play the ref more if such officials are going to have such acute views at areas of the game
Is it Joubert?? That’s ok. He is at least consistent.
Barnes was consistent yesterday, he favoured the attacking team unless it was blatant holding on, anything else was defending penalty.
Can’t agree with that. He pinged us all day for breakdown infringement but allowed France to slow our ball down by not releasing before jackaling
Agree
Bring back Alain Rolland, retired too early. Even not refereeing the others aspired to his standard.
Maybe we don’t understand the rules at the break down and he is just carrying out the law of the game off coarse if there’s a ref of international standards amongst us he could assist use
Barnes is too absolute in his application of the rules and uses no discretion to let the game flow.
He blew up yesterday for a not releasing when the ball was in the ruck for about 2 seconds.
Ridiculous.
“Jacket positions” or ” tackle positions” ?
Or even jackal position…..