While a third place playoff at a Rugby World Cup is hardly the most consequential of fixtures, the way the officiating was handled in last night's game between England and Argentina perhaps pointed to what has been a consistent issue at this tournament as a whole.
The game between England and Argentina was not the most pleasing on the eye. Some of that came down to the playing style of the teams involved, although it was also not helped by the referee at times.
Nick Berry was certainly not afraid to use his whistle over the course of the 80 minutes, also allowing some needless delays that sapped the energy from what was already going to be a difficult game to get excited about. As well as that, he and his officiating team made a number of questionable decisions that likely would have led to some serious questions if they had taken place in a more important fixture.
The reffing of the scrum was contentious at best, with a couple of glaring errors in general play thrown in for good measure. The most obvious of them came in the buildup to Tomas Cubelli's Argentina try, with the officials missing a clear forward pass in the buildup.
How on EARTH is that not a forward pass??????? #ENGvARG #RugbyWorldCup2023 pic.twitter.com/kx2SSx5MNL
— Andrew Lucas FRSA (@bythewatersedge) October 27, 2023
Not only did the referee not spot this at the time, but the TMO would also agree that the on-field decision was the correct one.
Some feel this is just the latest example in what has been a recurring issue at this year's Rugby World Cup.
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Rob Kearney's Rugby World Cup concern came to fruition
Refereeing has been a constant talking point at the 2023 Rugby World Cup, with many viewers growing tired of some of the poor and inconsistent decisions we have seen at the tournament.
Speaking on Virgin Media, Rob Kearney admitted that his pre-tournament concerns about officiating had come to fruition.
"What are we doing here guys?"
Rob Kearney, Matt Williams and Shane Horgan discuss the standard of refereeing at this Rugby World Cup on the back of another questionable night of officiating between England and Argentina.#ARGvENG | #RWC2023 pic.twitter.com/FV4UqP46p0— Virgin Media Sport (@VMSportIE) October 27, 2023
The officiating as a whole in this competition hasn't been great. I think the consistency across the board has been poor. It was one of my big worries coming into this World Cup.
I had two worries coming into this World Cup. One was head knocks, red cards, the whole story of concussion. I don't think that has been a huge problem, they have been very lenient on it.
My second worry was refereeing and were we going to spend a huge amount of analysis post-game, pre-game, in the week's buildup to the game. I think we have done too much of that.
Refereeing is not really a topic that anybody enjoy talking about in rugby, although this tournament has shown that there are clearly some issues in the game at the moment.
Shane Horgan said that the non-call on the Argentina forward pass was perhaps a symptom of a bigger problem in the sport.
The most egregious error on the night was the forward pass. It's not just that the referee missed it, it then got referred to the TMO and the TMO missed.
What are we doing here guys? That is absolutely ridiculous. It calls into question the officiating and the whole notion of referring to a TMO. That is integrity of the game stuff.
Was there a bit of 'this is a third place playoff and we have a decent game here'? We can't have that. I'm sorry, that's not acceptable.
Here's hoping that the refereeing will not be the main talking point after tonight's Rugby World Cup final
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