Scotland’s Ben Blain pulled the rugby refereeing equivalent of a Vladimir Putin by announcing war against South African teams in last weekend’s match between the Stormers and Connacht in Ireland.
As SA’s rugby troops began to infiltrate Europe in the United Rugby Championship (URC) last year, there were always going to be some hiccups along the way.
Off the field, the Euro invasion was halted by Covid-19, with Mzansi’s teams yet to host their northern-hemisphere counterparts after a string of matches were cancelled towards the end of last year because of an outbreak of a new strain.
Still, our forces braved it in Europe and were often met by testing weather conditions and “different interpretations of the law” by match officials.
Both these aspects were dik on display when the Stormers went down 19-17 at the Galway Greyhound Stadium.
With a wind wat die Kaapse Dokter sou trots maak blowing at the stadium, it was actually the whistle of Blain that ultimately blew away the Stormers - if former Springbok coach Nick Mallett’s word is to be believed.
Up 17-7 with a little over a quarter of the match to go, the Stormers then got two yellow cards - one for a deliberate knockdown from Sergeal Petersen and another for a high tackle by Ruhan Nel.
They also conceded eight penalties to the four of Connacht, with Mallett saying on SuperSport afterwards: “When you see how enthusiastically he [Blain] blew his whistle when the Stormers made a mistake and how he rued blowing his whistle when Connacht made a mistake, it wasn’t surprising to know who he wanted to win.”
Mallett broke it down further in the show “Final Whistle”, where he explained that Nel’s yellow card was “ridiculous”, while he felt Connacht also stopped the Stormers’ maul in the second half illegally without being penalised.
It is a sentiment echoed by Stormers captain Steven Kitshoff, who was quoted by IOL as saying: “The mauling was very frustrating.
“I felt we had complete dominance when it came to maul time, and we didn’t get any reward out of it.
“There were some cynical penalties that were missed.
I’m not bad-mouthing the ref at all, but there were clear penalties missed, and it was very frustrating.
“We’ll have a look at what went wrong and then discuss it with the refs prior to the games, but it was very frustrating not to get more reward out of those amazing maul metres we made.”
To klap South Africa’s bekke stil, Nel was cited for the yellow card offence after the match.
Admittedly, when he made the hit my first instinct was that he was in trouble.
You could hear the thwack as he made contact with Connacht’s Conor Fitzgerald.
I do feel Fitzgerald dipped a bit and felt the call of a yellow card could have gone either way.
Anyway, back to Blain and I want to remind you that it was dieselfde outjie who was the man in the middle when the Bulls lost to Connacht 34-7 in the competition last year.
In that match, with the score on 17-7 in favour of the hosts, an offside Connacht player blocked one of the Bulls tacklers for his counterattacking winger to pass through and score a try that would ultimately hit the final nail in the Bulls’ coffin.
To be fair to Blain, he asked the TMO to repeat his findings after he said the Bulls’ player “initiated contact” and therefore the try should stand.
The 33-year-old also made some inconsistent decisions at the breakdown in that encounter as well.
And that’s why after the match against the Stormers, I feel the battle lines were drawn.
Firstly, I don’t believe the same referee should take charge of one team against opponents from the same country twice.
The tournament organisers should have picked up on this and should not have appointed him for the game against the Stormers.
If he whistled Leinster’s match against the Lions, different story.
But they gave Blain another Connacht match against nog South African opposition.
It’s the same as Marius van der Westhuizen officiating next week’s Stormers home game against Zebre and then also taking the whistle when Munster comes to town the following week.
You can say what you want, but when you become used to officiating a match for one team, then there’s a familiarity between you and the players.
You know what to expect from the team and you build a relationship with the players - they get used to how you handle the game and you get used to the way they play.
Now the same goes for South African teams and our referees.
And that’s why I’m not too fussed about what happened last weekend.
With a seven-match home run, the Stormers - currently ninth on the log - are positioned well for a quarterfinal spot (I’ll get into that and Heineken Cup qualification next time).
For now, though, let’s stick to the refereeing issue.
Not really an eye-for-an-eye kind of guy, I believe it’s inevitable in this case.
We’ve seen what Europe can bring to the URC table, now it’s time for us to show them how we do things in South Africa.
There will be fallout after these matches in SA from the Euro camp, but our refs have to be thick-skinned in their implementation of the laws in the way we “understand” stand them.
So pick up your whistles Marius and co. and show Blain and his friends how it’s really done.