Watched a replay of this match last night, with many slo-mos for the contentious decisions. My observations:
1. What part of Law 20.3 Binding in the Scrum does Jackson not understand? The Kiwi commentators, especially Willie Lose, were uncharacteristically one-eyed but even they were surprised Jackson and/or his assistants weren't picking up on this. I'm quite aware Kiwi rugby players in general are bloody sharp adjusting their play according to a ref's rulings, but missing this is outright incompetence in my book.
2. Jackson made a series of shockers between the 60 and 65 minute mark. First of all was the penalty for Horne offside; this occurred on the 10m line and showed Rob to be in line (and onside) with the other Tahs backs. The following lineout yielded another penalty to the Saders for barging in the lineout. The reason the Tahs' jumper reached over the Saders #2 was because the ball was thrown so far over their side he had to reach over the red body to try and grab the ball. I don't reckon he did anything other than touch the other bloke's torso while competing for the pill. Then there was the TMO try; what an appalling sequence of events. First of all Jackson DIDN'T see the ball grounded. As a former ref if a player goes over the goal line with the ball grasped to his stomach and no opponent within reach I'd award a try every time. But I'm not a Super ref, Jackson should've either awarded it immediately (I wouldn't've had a problem if he did) or he should've asked for evidence of grounding. The question, "please give me a reason why I shouldn't award a try" should've evoked the reply, "because there was no evidence of the ball being grounded". That's a fucking good reason! Then he had the gall to pull Dennis out and mention some penalty he was going to award for I don't know what; it couldn't've been collapsing the maul as the Saders players were on their feet as they went over the goal line. Jackson looked rattled here and seemed to be making decisions up after he'd thought about what he'd previously buggered up.
3. The Hooper penalty for off side. I've NEVER heard a ref call "not out", it's always "stay back 7". And neither should they. I replayed this about four times and Jackson seemed to say the ball was out, but it also seemed he was still trying to make up his mind what he'd said.
4. Jackson didn't apply the same standards for offside to the Saders he did to the Tahs. I found about five occasions when the red players were in front of the last feet and not called. It still amazes me why TJ/ARs don't take full control of offside infringements at the breakdown. In the instance of Horne's penalty Jackson wasn't in line with the Tahs side of the ruck yet he felt he was able to rule on Rob's offside. But he didn't take the same view of Saders' offsides.
5. The knock on after the last kickoff occurred at the 74:20 minute mark and the first scrum was finally joined at 75:10. For me that was bad enough but the subsequent four resets (with many instances of the Saders' back row unbinding!) and a four minute scrum was one the most appallingly incompetent game management instances I've seen. The Saders had a vested interest in wasting time, and should've been marked severely for it.
Having watched rugby for too many years to count, and I'll admit for the vast majority of matches I've watched I've had an emotional interest in the result, I'm quite aware refs sometimes get a "set" against one side for some reason or another. It could be bad-mouthing the ref, poor discipline, constant questioning of decisions or something else. Good refs SHOULD get over this but they're all human and sometimes they don't. I dislike it intensely when it's obvious a ref's looking at one team for infringements but not the other; sadly, it happens occasionally. And I reckon Jackson was reffing the Tahs on Friday night and not the Saders. I couldn't find any evidence the Tahs had done anything to upset him before the 60 minute mark. It's easy to be a good ref when the game's flowing and nothing untoward happens, but when things get difficult I reckon Jackson chokes. As he did on Friday.
On other matters, twice in the last two matches Cheika's played Barnes in place of Horne at 12, and twice it hasn't worked. 'Nuff said.
