The Charles Tyrwhitt Sports activities Guide Awards happen on 6 June. RW seems at one of many shortlisted rugby titles – the autobiography of record-breaking referee Wayne Barnes
How ironic that when Wayne Barnes, future referee extraordinaire, was a participant in his pupil days, his major position within the group was to cheat.
As a “non-tackling back-row” for College of East Anglia, Barnes was a part of a transfer that concerned him holding the opposition flanker’s shirt to engineer house for a blind-side assault. When he tried it in opposition to Crusaders within the Norfolk Plate ultimate, he obtained a punch within the face for his impertinence.
Barnes recollects the incident in Throwing the Guide, the superb autobiography that marked his retirement final November as arguably the most effective referee the game has seen. He took cost of a world document 111 Checks, the final of them the 2023 World Cup ultimate, together with 272 English Premiership matches, together with a document ten finals.
His guide is the total bundle, amusing anecdotes complementing constructive criticism and a few punchy opinions on referee bosses.
In 2005 on the U21 World Cup in Mendoza, he was pushed by Steve Griffiths, then World Rugby’s Referee Supervisor, to offer his trustworthy opinion on a directive to penalise attackers standing in entrance of the ball on the ruck. Barnes felt they’d no impact on play and stated so – and located himself refereeing essentially the most lowly-ranked video games for the remainder of the match.
Barnes collects his medal from Sir Invoice Beaumont after the 2023 World Cup ultimate in Paris (Getty Photos)
He was axed from the 2009 Six Nations for utilizing first names when speaking to gamers (though ended up doing the Wales-Eire Grand Slam sport after Steve Walsh was injured) and remarkably was nonetheless being reminded to not use first names final 12 months!
He was additionally dropped from the 2012 Six Nations as a result of he wasn’t penalising the assault sufficient on the breakdown. However letting video games stream was his type and when he then began to penalise the assault mercilessly – spoiling video games like Samoa v Tonga and Fiji v Samoa with an extreme quantity of whistle – it was as a result of it was the one method to cease his Check profession ending on the scrapheap.
World Rugby will get it within the neck usually within the guide. Based on Barnes, their faults embrace issuing refereeing edicts midway by tournaments; not making ready refs for the excessive sort out sanction framework at RWC 2019; ill-conceived legislation modifications that then want abolishing; bowing to South African strain to vary the maul legislation after Wales discovered a method to disrupt it legally; blaming refs when there’s public criticism as an alternative of defending them.
Attempting to cease a fracas throughout a Prime 14 match between Bourgoin and Biarritz in 2009 (AFP/Getty Photos)
You may not agree with all the pieces he says – his dismissive perspective to the crooked feed springs to thoughts – however he talks a shed-load of excellent sense. For instance, the present system of marking a Check ref down for ‘non-decisions’ encourages refs to whistle for all the pieces. Why not spin that round and mark them down for stopping a sport unnecessarily?
“Refereeing at World Rugby wants a complete overhaul, a transparent philosophy and a training construction, so that each one its match officers know what’s anticipated of them,” he concludes.
Some folks nonetheless assume Barnes is a fancy rugger bloke from the Residence Counties. They couldn’t be extra incorrect. Raised in Bream within the Forest of Dean, he acquired the nickname ‘Wurzel’ at college due to his thick Forest accent. His dad drove lorries, his mum labored on the snooker membership, his brother was expelled from college for throwing a desk on the deputy head.
Barnes started refereeing on the age of 15, as a method to keep concerned whereas he recovered from an damage. His debut with the whistle was Bream 3rds v Berry Hill Wrappers. It was bedlam on the pitch however afterwards he obtained paid a 5 for his hassle and given a tankard of beer. This might be the interest for me, he thought.
A part of the referees’ line-up at RWC 2011 – a match the place he was handled disgracefully (Getty)
He refereed about 100 matches in his first season, and ran contact 100 occasions too. It partially explains his heady progress: degree 5 by the age of 21, a primary Premiership match by 24, the RFU’s youngest full-time elite referee by 25. He made the RFU’s Nationwide Panel with out doing any referee programs, endorsing his perception that there’s no higher method to be taught than on the job.
He was a fish out of water when given his first Premiership match: Bathtub v Rotherham in 2003. He anticipated an easy house win however within the occasion had a giant punch-up, a streaker and an ambulance on the pitch to cope with. All while attempting to not be sick following an enormous evening celebrating touchdown a tenancy at a London authorized chambers.
The truth is, Barnes’s ‘different job’, as a barrister, has usually been forgotten down the years. Few realise what number of nights he spent engaged on authorized instances till midnight. On one event, while nonetheless a junior barrister, he was given a wasted prices order and fined for lacking a rescheduled magistrates case that clashed with a prearranged Scotland-Barbarians sport that he was reffing in Aberdeen.
If his choice for the 2007 World Cup refs group stunned many, there was a palpable shock within the room when it was introduced that he would take cost of the most important of the 4 quarter-finals, France v New Zealand in Cardiff. He was 28 on the time.
Barnes throughout the outstanding 2017 France-Wales match that featured 20 minutes of stoppage time (Getty)
As everyone knows, he and his assistants missed a slight ahead go within the build-up to France’s successful strive – a kind of quick passes that so many officers don’t spot. Barnes felt it prudent to disguise himself when attending the next week’s Paris semi-final as a fan, given the huge numbers of All Blacks followers within the stadium.
Sadly, the wound went deep and Barnes was subjected to shameful abuse from Kiwis on the 2011 World Cup in that nation, together with an effigy of him being burned in Christchurch, a Fb group referred to as Wayne Barnes Should Die and a bust of his head being positioned in a Queenstown bar’s urinals. Barnes got here near suing Graham Henry for libel for suggesting match-fixing might need been at play, an totally absurd slur.
Barnes nearly give up the game however was talked out of it by Nigel Yates, his coach. Ahead-wind a decade and Rassie Erasmus was equally irresponsible when posting inflammatory movies on social media, criticising Barnes’s selections within the France v South Africa match in Marseille. Barnes and his household subsequently obtained appalling abuse and even loss of life threats.
Since that episode in 2022, referees now not meet head coaches one-to-one earlier than Checks.
Fortunately there’s a whole lot of lighter materials within the guide, a lot of it drink-related. You may assume a match official would by no means nod off whereas leaning on a put up at Twickenham however unusual issues can occur on the World Sevens circuit…
And though Barnes reined within the extra seen ingesting as he obtained older, partly as a result of he was a household man and partly as a result of he was conscious of public notion, how refreshing {that a} referee can mingle with supporters in a pub after a match, as an alternative of feeling they’ve to cover away.
Wayne Barnes was, and stays, a real rugby man, organising an annual charity match and establishing a union to additional the pursuits of Check-match officers. He additionally has a YouTube channel referred to as Throw the Guide through which he explains rugby jargon.
Now working for a giant legislation agency, Squire Patton Boggs, he helped take refereeing requirements to a brand new degree and that could be a legacy that compares with any of the legendary gamers in our sport.
Wayne Barnes: Throwing the Guide, written with Ben Dirs, is printed by Constable, RRP £25.
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