New twist in 'De Villiers v the refs' saga
Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:51
Fronting up: Peter de Villiers and Victor Matfield face the media
The ongoing debate about the perceived unfair treatment South African teams receive at the hands of referees will take a new twist next week Springbok coach Peter de Villiers and national teams manager Andy Marinos meet Paddy O'Brien, the International Rugby Board (IRB) manager of referees.
It all came to a head this past week when O'Brien took exception to remarks, attributed to De Villiers, which were very critical of Australian referee Matt Goddard - the man in charge of New Zealand's 19-0 whitewash of South Africa in Cape Town last week.
According to newspaper reports De Villiers complained about match officials, claiming they were being 'wrapped in cotton wool'.
The IRB referees boss, O'Brien, had taken a dim view of such comments. He was also furious to see Matfield constantly questioning Goddard's decisions last Saturday and 'arguing' with him.
O'Brien, in turn, hurled his own set of accusation at the Springboks - including that they had not submitted mandatory post-match reports to the IRB with any grievances team management may have with match officials.
All this will come to a head at a meeting between the two groups - where De Villiers, Marinos and O'Brien will come face-to-face to "discuss matters of common concern"
The meeting will take place in Johannesburg.
"This is an opportunity to discuss issues with the IRB, face-to-face," Marinos said in a statement.
"There are a number of technical matters we'd like to raise but there are two issues we want to straighten out.
"We'd like to discuss our request to meet referees in the company of opposition coaches before Test matches and correct the suggestions that we have failed in our duties to provide refereeing reports to the IRB.
"Let me categorically deny that. We have submitted all the required reports to date and will submit a report on refereeing at the end of the Vodacom Tri-Nations – as the tournament manual requires.
"We have enormous sympathy for referees who in some cases have had to manage blowing as many as five different sets of laws this season – it's only natural that we'd want to talk to them about interpretations in such a complex environment."
