Barnes also admitted an incorrect penalty call against Savea in the first half but still allowed SA to go ahead and kick the penalty. IMO it's a tainted World Cup with the wrong team winning. Still, at least they didn't poison the opponents this time around.
The officials had a superb game except for one decision near the end when SA illegally stripped the ball at the breakdown and should have been penalised. SA should have lost to France but were saved by the officials, should have lost to NZ but were saved by the officials and would have lost to...
That's a fine bit of whataboutery but doesn't change the facts. O'Keefe, after cheating France the previous weekend, repeatedly gave SA scrum penalties when they were infringing.
Ben O'Keefe's name goes down in infamy for his match-winning performances for the Boks 2 weeks in a row. 4 scrum penalties for SA last night despite Jamie George taking time to explain that the replacement SA prop was pushing on the angle to disrupt the English scrum. O'Keefe's answer was to...
It was stolen by a bent ref, as per the Ireland and France quarter-finals. Almost impossible for a Northern hemisphere team to beat a Southern hemisphere team with a Southern hemisphere ref.
Edit: Barnes, an English man, was refling the Ireland game so, while the Southern hemisphere bias cannot...
It's virtually impossible to beat New Zealand or South Africa if you have a Southern hemisphere referee. The ref will penalise you for nothing, will let them get away with foul play continually and will inevitably engineer the last few minutes to give them a penalty to take the lead if needed.
You can't beat a southern hemisphere team with a Southern hemisphere referee. As proven by Ireland, France and England, the ref will always engineer the result.
I also thought Barnes was excellent, although maybe he penalised the Irish a bit too much in the scrums when it might have been NZ deliberately encouraging the wheel?
Edit: I would add that I have never played rugby so what actually happens in the scrum is a mystery to me but it did seem like NZ...