{"id":565817,"date":"2026-08-11T15:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T15:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/565817\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T15:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T15:10:09","slug":"springboks-v-all-blacks-sir-john-kirwan-prays-we-dont-get-pedantic-referees-for-greatest-rivalry-tests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/565817\/","title":{"rendered":"Springboks v All Blacks: Sir John Kirwan prays we don’t get pedantic referees for Greatest Rivalry tests"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir John Kirwan has rued the performance of the match officials in the All Blacks\u2019 38-21 victory over the Stormers<\/a> in the Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry tour opener.<\/p>\n

Dave Rennie\u2019s charges were made to work hard for their opening tour victory with the Cape-based side keeping within touching distance before the All Blacks scored three tries in 10 minutes after the hour mark.<\/p>\n

However, New Zealand\u2019s ill-discipline didn\u2019t help matters with Anton Lienert-Brown, Simon Parker and Josh Moorby all visiting the sin-bin, the latter of which after conceding a penalty try.<\/p>\n

Lienert-Brown was yellow carded for a high tackle while Parker was sent to the bin after multiple infringements by the All Blacks in the lineouts.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the Rugby Rivals podcast, Kirwan aired his frustrations around the officiating of the match as he believes that referee Karl Dickson was \u2018pedantic\u2019 in his handling of the game.<\/p>\n

\u2018Pedantic\u2019 refereeing for the All Blacks<\/p>\n

While he was not happy with the Englishman\u2019s decisions, he added that the All Blacks<\/a> had to sort out their discipline.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the disappointing things for me was the refereeing; for me it was just pedantic. I thought the yellow cards were marginal at best. To play any game with 13 is going to be tough, so I thought the refereeing was poor, and the All Blacks, rightly so, said we need to fix our discipline \u2013 and that\u2019s true,\u201d Kirwan<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot go through a game without that discipline; the discipline in the mid parts of that game will need improving, but I just pray that we don\u2019t get referees that pedantic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Show host, Ricardo Salizzo, interjected, adding: \u201cYou know that this is the way that World Rugby<\/a> wants to run the game. They want the TMOs to have a heavy involvement. They want the referees to be strong. So don\u2019t you think we need to be smarter?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want the TMO to come in. There was an inside pass that they called back\u2026 that\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen, so isn\u2019t it on us to be more disciplined?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTotally,\u201d Kirwan replied. \u201cI said the discipline needs to get better, but what I\u2019m saying is that did you believe there were two yellow cards?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sir Steve Hansen: The Springboks \u2018roll the dice every time\u2019 with the Bomb Squad and the Stormers showed why it\u2019s a \u2018risk\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Springboks<\/a> legend Victor Matfield also featured on the show and said that he believes that the game\u2019s governing body wants to get to the correct decisions with the help of the TMOs but has called for a quicker process in getting there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate it. But unfortunately, like Ricardo was saying, that\u2019s how it\u2019s going to be. That\u2019s how World Rugby wants the game to be run. We do want the right decisions \u2013 so TMOs will get involved,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s about how quickly they make those decisions, or even if they see something, have a look while the game is going, then go back and say this is what happened, but let\u2019s get speed into the game. Unfortunately, we\u2019re not going to change it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a guy goes for the intercept, it goes to the ground; that\u2019s a yellow card. If he slips up and makes head contact, it\u2019s going to be a yellow card. Those are things that we don\u2019t want to see, but unfortunately, the way it\u2019s refereed, that\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sir Steve Hansen\u2019s bold \u2018100 per cent\u2019 Richie Mo\u2019unga claim as ex-All Blacks boss backs Dave Rennie to make \u2018right decision\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Josh Moorby\u2019s yellow card and penalty try<\/p>\n

Kirwan took issue with Moorby\u2019s yellow card in particular, stating that every player would have attempted to stop the ball carrier from reaching for the try-line in that scenario.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the Moorby penalty try and yellow card, for me, that was the most pedantic decision in the game. The reason is rugby is a natural instinct game,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one would have tried not to wrap his arm around to stop a try in goal there. I don\u2019t even understand the ruling. It\u2019s a natural movement of the game where you\u2019re wrapping your arm around, you\u2019re trying to stop a try, you\u2019ve seen it a hundred million times over the goal. So when I look at that, I go, it doesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matfield took issue with the outside back getting further punished after the penalty try.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do we have to send the guy off? If he didn\u2019t do it, it would have been a try; now he has, so it\u2019s a penalty try,\u201d he remarked<\/a>. \u201cSo why do we need to send the guy off? I still don\u2019t understand it \u2013 I don\u2019t know how they got to these rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

World Rugby has lost control<\/p>\n

Kirwan quipped: \u201cThat\u2019s because World Rugby has lost control of what the referees want to do versus what our game wants to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cIt\u2019s pedantic. I agree with Victor; you shouldn\u2019t send him off. It\u2019s a penalty try because it\u2019s not malicious. It\u2019s not on purpose; we need to start looking at the game from a common sense point of view. There was no malice in that tackle from Anton Lienert-Brown; it was a light contact.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was going backwards. The tackled player actually won the advantage line. It\u2019s just frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0All Blacks latest: Dave Rennie forced into late reshuffle as key man withdraws from Sharks showdown<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir John Kirwan has rued the performance of the match officials in the All Blacks\u2019 38-21 victory over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1463,1464,111,43,139,69,6327,213],"class_list":["post-565817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}