Rassie’s dangerous game with officials is hardening attitudes towards the Boks

Remember that teacher you dreaded getting in the next grade, or that person you hoped to avoid being paired with at a team-building exercise? Well, that’s probably how rugby’s match officials feel about being asked to oversee Springbok rugby matches these days.

If the Boks lose, they are inevitably going to be skewered by South African director of rugby Rassie Erasmus on Twitter. If they make mistakes officiating the most complex game imaginable, where the wording of the laws is clear but the practical application of them is as grey as a December Edinburgh sky, Rassie is coming for them.

Match officials are asked to make about 400 decisions per game at the highest level. If they make 10 incorrect calls, they are still scoring 97.5% on their review. What other job demands such a high level of accuracy, but makes it so hard for the men in the middle?

Officials certainly make mistakes. Unfortunately, some of those errors are critical, where one bad call could have a direct impact on the result. It really is a thankless task and more to do with rugby’s complexities than pure bias, as Erasmus seems to want us to believe.

Hardcore Springbok rugby fans love Rassie for his public attacks on officials. He’s sticking it to the man. He’s holding up a mirror to those buggers in their ivory towers, who have had it in for the Springboks since 1992. You know, the Springboks who have won three Rugby World Cups despite being crucified by match officials for decades.

Irony aside, of course, the Boks have been on the wrong end of bad decisions. Maybe even more than most, although there is no definitive way of knowing that short of going through every Test ever played and comparing which team endured the worst mistakes.

Of course, poor decisions have cost the Boks games and possibly even titles. But if anyone can say with a straight face that the Springboks have never benefited from some good calls by match officials, they’d be lying.

Law of diminishing returns

In 2021, when Rassie’s 62-minute, full-frontal assault on British & Irish Lions first-Test referee Nic Berry “leaked” into the media, I took the view it was about time someone addressed rugby’s flaws publicly.

My view was shaped by several factors, not least Berry’s deferential treatment of Lions captain Alun Wyn Jones compared with his dismissive approach to Bok captain Siya Kolisi, which the video revealed.

Ironically, the final judgment in the disciplinary hearing only served to entrench the observation of unconscious bias against Kolisi.

The second reason I supported the Erasmus video then was that Lions coach Warren Gatland played a subtler, but no less impactful game by placing pressure on match officials via selected UK media outlets before the first Test.

And third, I argued that Rassie’s reaction was a classic case of eschewing Einstein’s definition of madness – doing the same things over and over and expecting a different outcome.

Erasmus opted to move on from the process of dutifully cutting video reviews of controversial incidents and sending them to World Rugby’s head of referees, Joel Jutge, for “clarity”, only to see the same mistakes repeat themselves.

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But by continually doing what he’s doing now, Rassie is diminishing the effect. He is repeatedly posting clips of refereeing errors in the public domain and expecting a different outcome.

All he’s doing is building resentment towards the Boks and almost certainly hardening any unconscious bias officials might have against the Springboks. No one loves a whinger and I’m afraid that’s what it is.

Not attacks?

Naturally, Erasmus denies his tweets are an attack on officials, just like he denied the 62-minute Berry video was leaked.

His dissection of incidents in games (always incidents that negatively impact the Boks) are delivered with the pretence that they are not shown as criticisms of officials but, to use the parlance of the day, as “learnings” for the Boks and fans.

If you believe that, you probably believe in Santa Claus. These are direct and clear attacks on officials and the application of the laws.

I asked him about his tweets this week and whether he thought it was a good idea considering he had just returned from a 10-month ban and could incur World Rugby’s wrath again.

This was part of his reply:

“It's not about having a go at the referees. If I was having a go at the referee, well, I don’t think Wayne Barnes would make all those bad decisions. He’s No 1 in the world and has 100 Tests under the belt.

“It’s obviously something on our side we need to fix. I just want supporters to understand that. If people put a narrative to that, I can’t control it.

“They’re (the tweets) are being done for South African supporters to understand that there’s some things that some guys on the opposition side are really doing well, which we don’t understand.”

I’m not sure I followed his logic fully, but this is my best interpretation: “These clips are not being done to highlight inconsistencies in officiating (while highlighting inconsistencies in officiating), but rather to educate the South African rugby public about the mistakes the Boks are making.”

That explanation is simply patronising to fans and to the intelligence of rugby watchers everywhere.

So, the real question is: why is he doing it? With Rassie, nothing is uncalculated or unplanned. Every move he makes in the rugby universe is done with an outcome in mind.

Obviously, we can conclude that putting pressure on officials and highlighting rugby’s flaws are part of the plan. But the outcome of this conclusion is opaque to me.

Is it an attempt to have the lawbook rewritten again? Is it a play to put pressure on World Rugby to introduce an appeals system during the game? Or is it simply to lead to a situation where officials are punished for their mistakes?

My best guess at another reason he is playing this dangerous game is that he’s sending a message to his players and deflecting from their own shortcomings. 

He could be saying to the squad: “The world is against us, but I have your back. I will martyr myself in the court of public opinion and possibly in World Rugby’s disciplinary dock again. I will protect you publicly.”

With Rassie Erasmus, nothing is quite as it seems. DM