{"id":908983,"date":"2026-09-28T20:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T20:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/908983\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T20:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T20:58:12","slug":"rugby-greats-believe-ridiculous-and-stupid-things-in-wallabies-win-over-springboks-are-turning-off-our-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/908983\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby greats believe \u2018ridiculous\u2019 and \u2018stupid\u2019 things in Wallabies\u2019 win over Springboks \u2018are turning off our fans\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Legendary rugby duo John Kirwan and Victor Matfield have hit out at the farcical situations that left the Wallabies defending with 11 players against the Springboks<\/a> and referee Andrea Piardi needing a mobile phone to communicate with his TMO.<\/p>\n

Australia won Sunday\u2019s Test match in Perth against the reigning double world champions, but ex-All Black Kirwan and former Springbok Matfield took issue with the rate at which yellow cards were brandished towards the end of the match.<\/p>\n

With skipper Harry Wilson, scrum-half Ryan Lonergan, winger Joseph Suaalii and centre Hunter Paisami all sin-binned within a 10-minute spell, it left the Wallabies playing with just 11 players for a short time near the end of the match.<\/p>\n

It was a bizarre situation, but it wasn\u2019t the only very strange carry-on as the Italian referee lost communication with his TMO. This left a sideline jobsworth having to run onto the pitch on several occasions and hand a mobile phone to the referee so that they could talk about a variety of contentious incidents.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur game is dynamic, and it is the thing that we won\u2019t face\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

That \u2018Batphone\u2019 nonsense unfolded just 13 days after the Springboks\u2019 previous match, the finale in their Greatest Rivalry series with the All Blacks<\/a>, was delayed during the first half in Baltimore due to another communications malfunction.<\/p>\n

The farce left Kirwan and Matfield incredulous, with the Kiwi adding that fans would be voting with their feet and watching other sports because of rugby\u2019s continuing ability to make itself look silly.<\/p>\n

Appearing on the latest edition of Rugby Rivals<\/a> to review Australia\u2019s 42-38 win over South Africa<\/a>, Kirwan said: \u201cWatching Australia go down to 11 men like a soccer team was just ridiculous. We are turning off our fans\u2026 We\u2019ve just had the most amazing weekend of sport. Like, it\u2019s been unbelievable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rugby league\u2019s been unbelievable\u2026 and Australian rules and the Wallabies winning was fantastic, but people are just walking away, saying, \u2018What the hell is our game come to?\u2019 Like, the penalty try, the half-back jumps on the ball. Like a penalty try, isn\u2019t that enough in our game?<\/p>\n

Ex-Springboks boss questions Rassie Erasmus\u2019 selection: \u2018He looks like a lock playing flank\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe that players are actually trying to hurt people\u2026 a lot of these players, they don\u2019t do that and it\u2019s fantastic. Our game is a dynamic game, and it is the thing that we won\u2019t face.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur people are worried about the head knocks, and I get that, but the technology is doing its best. We\u2019re doing our best for our young kids. We\u2019re doing our best around our whole lot of stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you cannot punish the top end of the game when these players are not doing it on purpose. I\u2019m sick of people saying to me, \u2018Oh, JK, you talk about rugby league\u2019, but rugby league is increasing their television rights, increasing their crowd, increasing their fan base.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re getting the walk-ins away from rugby because they actually put people on report and they deal with it on Monday. Guys are still possibly missing the finals and that, so we have got to stop punishing our fans who want to watch the game and punishing the players for something that is absolutely unavoidable when you see someone drop down.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike, what are we doing? Can we just move a bit faster, World Rugby? The chairman (Brett Robinson) is Australian<\/a> and that\u2019s happened to your team on the weekend? Can you just do something and intervene and actually say, \u2018We\u2019re going to change this as quick as possible and try putting people on report?\u2019 People aren\u2019t trying to do this (make illegal tackles on purpose).\u201d<\/p>\n

Sir Steve Hansen slams \u2019embarrassing\u2019 scenes during 11-man Wallabies victory: \u2018How can we allow a game to degenerate\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Matfield chimed in: \u201cWhat would people have said if we scored that last try? You\u2019re playing against 11 players; that\u2019s a rugby game versus a soccer game. Four guys more than the other team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m with you, and we have spoken about it. When you\u2019re in a maul, and you stop the maul and they still get the penalty try, if you didn\u2019t do it, it would just have been a try. Why does the guy need to go off the field? It\u2019s just stupid. They need to look at it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t want to go into a World Cup getting a team playing with 11 players against 15, so hopefully this is a game where people just have a look at it and say, \u2018Listen, we need to do something about this\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother thing, this is the second week in a row where there\u2019s no communication between the TMO and the referee. How do you get that right that the guy needs to run onto the field with a telephone to make a call? It\u2019s just bizarre\u2026 How can that happen in this modern era?\u201d<\/p>\n

Wallabies\u2019 centre crisis for All Blacks showdown as Les Kiss issues verdict on Joseph Sua\u2019ali\u2019i trial<\/a><\/p>\n

Kirwan returned to the debate to complain about the allegedly detrimental influence that TMOs are now wielding. \u201cSomething that happened in rugby league: the mighty Warriors are a team I\u2019m very passionate about because I played for them for a couple of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey got knocked out of the (NRL) semi-final because of a referee\u2019s missed decision. What happened is this referee who ran out, I thought this guy \u2013 and I hadn\u2019t seen rugby league for three months, I\u2019d been away \u2013 is a great ref. He\u2019s dominant; he tells the players off, but this guy had turned into a passive referee because of upstairs, so he is not making decisions anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe TMO is actually turning our amazing referees into people that can\u2019t cope without all these comms, right? It was like the Baltimore Test, just get on with the game. What\u2019s going to happen? Like, for me it\u2019s crazy.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as\u00a0a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe TMO is turning our referees from these great characters, and I love the referees; they\u2019re great men who show a lot of courage. But they\u2019re all turning, \u2018Oh no, I\u2019m not going to make a decision; let\u2019s go to the TMO because I\u2019m not going to look bad\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s what\u2019s happening (in union) \u2013 and it\u2019s happening in rugby league. We are taking the personality away from people who are normally doing a great job and someone has to intervene and say, \u2018This is not working, people. Let\u2019s change it\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Who\u2019s hot and who\u2019s not: \u2018Statement\u2019 Wallaby win, \u2018unmistakable difference\u2019 Springboks can\u2019t ignore and \u2018unwanted\u2019 Irish clean sweep<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Legendary rugby duo John Kirwan and Victor Matfield have hit out at the farcical situations that left the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":908984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,818,1182,477352,44,760,1183,85,1185],"class_list":["post-908983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-john-kirwan","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-south-africa","tag-sports","tag-victor-matfield"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=908983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/908984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}