Rugby Referee Analysis: Wayne Barnes | Ireland vs France 6 Nations 2023

I'm back, and who would've guessed, my first game back and it's the same old story. World Rugby showing again how incompetent they truly are. Wayne Barnes is supposed to be a top level referee with over a 100 caps, yet he folds under pressure every single time. I've never seen a ref who is so biased towards the home team like he is. It's almost impossible to win an away game with him as the ref, because he gets so pressured from the home fans. The TMO in this game was Brendon Pickerill, who was just as bad, if not worse than Wayne Barnes

Here we had one of the biggest games of the year in the 6 Nations, with France vs Ireland. It promised to be a massive game between two powerhouses, instead we got a game influenced by the ref and TMO. I don't even know where to start, there is so many talking points here. I mean we have the James Lowe "try", which will probably go down as one of the biggest blunders by a ref and TMO in rugby history. It starts with James Lowe immediately showing with his face, that he didn't score the try. Then they go to the reply, and the TMO is to incompetent to pause a frame when watching the replay. Which I use and show you how clearly his foot was touching the grass. But that is not even the worst part, the worst has to be the fact that he sits with an angle that shows the try from behind, we then clearly see his foot touching the grass. This happens to happen after the conversion goes over. The TMO sees this, and instead of fixing his mistake, he simply ignores it.

Then we have the Uini Atonio yellow card, where once again we see how the law is inconsistently applied. World Rugby can't take a stance on how to deal with it, the leave everything open for interpretation which makes is impossible for refs to ref. Then we have some Northern Hemisphere fans who even think that should've been a red card. If tackles like that are going to be red card, then it's the end of rugby. If you care so much about player safety, then maybe don't play one of the most physical games in the world? Every year these incidents are getting more ridiculous. I would be okay if the law was applied consistently, but in this game I show about 10 other tackles where there is also head contact, but yet it does not get reviewed or even penalized. Which frustrates me because why do you give a yellow card for a tackle like this, then just ignore it throughout the rest of the game. Either penalize all hits where there is head contact, or use commons sense and penalize foul intent.

Then we have Wayne Barnes just making it impossible for France to compete at the breakdown by ignoring how Ireland seals off the breakdown at most of the rucks. France tried their hearts out to get turnovers, but was denied by Ireland sealing off or going off their feet to clean the French forwards. it was a joke of a game from Wayne Barnes and he once against showed his incompetence for the big game. But hey, let's just blame Rassie Ersasmus and social media for his incompetence, that's the real reason Wayne Barnes is bad at his job, it's not to do with his own skills, it's all Rassies fault

[bipper]

i'm french and i don't think we lost because of Barnes... we lost because the irish were just better than us yesterday....we can always try to blame the ref but at the end of the game the irish scored 4 tries to 1....was Barnes perfect? no but was he the main reason why we lost?.. nope again.... in fact it's borderline disrespectful to the irish who played a great game to think otherwise.. congrats to them and good luck to them for the rest of the tournament...

[edjonas]

What a game, watched it with my father, we're French. He's not too much of a sport fan, but he likes Rugby. Long time I didn't watched something with him, so, even if we lost, it was a good moment. Thanks Irish people for the game. Was in Kenmare (Kerry) last year and it was amazing, thanks Irish people for the hospitality.

[jameslynch]

Bless - I think someone’s a bit worried about their World Cup pool

[fionnmoules]

You want every single moment of the game to be micromanaged we’d get about 20mins if actual play time

[mms]

Watched the whole video and you were only able to show two instances of actual contention; the try by Lowe and the yellow card. Every other “head contact” you have tried to highlight were ridiculous. Players bent over at the hips going shoulder to shoulder? Dupont (I believe) jogging into Murray with both men upright? I think you would be best served sticking to being a casual fan as you clearly have a poor understanding of how the game flows. C for effort. Ps, at 7.07 the penalty was for being ahead of the play not foul play.

[leonardodavinci]

Do you ever do videos with how South Africa gets away with things?

[bigballywho]

Pathetic attempt to undermine a tremendous Irish performance..come on games now days are physical and played at a high pace.

[endahoran]

So wingers no arms shoulder barge is also ignored ? On that approach then it should be a penalty try awarded and yellow for French tackler ? Biased reviews sully the nature of the game…

[bigowenzy]

James lowes try was awarded as a try. It was up to the tmo to find an angle the dispute that desicion. Tbf to barnes none of the angles he was shown proved other wise.

Antonios tackle was a red due to the force and not making an effort to lower his body. Barnes got this wrong. But you never you the expert didnt give any opinion on this, why?

Then you showed a montage of tackles that were mainly absorbing tackles with no degree of danger and ask for them all to be reviewed. None were even close to antonios level of danger and therefore cannot be compared.

The sealing off thing is a minefield but 90% were ireland simply getting to the ruck faster. What do you want them to do there, let france turn over the ball? Grasping at straws there. There were a few off the feet alright, ireland could have be penalised there a couple of times. No footage of france doing this?

James ryan could have walked. Yellow at most. But penaly right call for me.

Ultimately you either have a serious problem with ireland or try to instigate that all refs are "homers". The video was heavily weighted against ireland for some reason. You clearly have a bias against reffereeing and therfore should not be taken seriously. If you created more balanced videos showing both sides of the coin that would be better.

[adamtier]

Nobody is talking about how the french 14 made no attempt to tackle Lowe, instead he just dangerously launched his shoulder into him! If that was correctly addressed, then it most certainly would of been a penalty try award for Ireland.

[jimmyturner]

Sorry but that tackle that French lad did that was only a yellow card should’ve been a red, I mean, it’s literally a shoulder to the head, and the guy was concussed, like, c’mon. I’m not saying Barnes was biased to any side, he’s just a shit ref in general

[babasc]

Hey guys. I am french and not completly agree with this video. We Barnes like to let play a lot and france also made some mistakes. Sometimes referees make mistakes. At the end te Irish where better than the french. They found the way to break our line and we did not. It was a great game on top.of the world rugby and even if we lost I found the performence of both teams was incredible. High level. Bravo to Ireland. Bravo to my team as well. We are n2...we will be n1.

[philippecornelis]

Why don’t you go referee these high intensity matches? You would obviously solve all problems…

[ardmhuirecas]

The tackle on James Lowe was a no-arms tackle so a penalty try should have been the call and yes red card James Ryan was a lucky boy...but we won happy days 😀 😉

[stevieboy]

Well mate, seeing as you love the ruck area and sealing off, particularly against Ireland, shockingly France did it as well 😲. Here’s a few from only the first half you can review, timestamps below are from the match clock of the game:
1:48 (sealing off)
1:55 (sealing off)
3:13 (side entry)
11:19 (side entry)
12:35 (sealing off)
12:45 (sealing off)
23:29 (sealing off)
36:29 (sealing off)

[boddela]

Why do you never find mistakes when SA Play dear world ?? Notting is perfekt should have Being red Not yellow lreland deserved that Win, Dear World, If you Want to find Something you will,

[aightm]

If his foot made contact with the floor it wouldn't have glided like that

[jeffrey]

How you managed to make it look like Barnes did Ireland favours is just fantastic given the total opposite was true

[timgill]

With all the angles you hammer on for that first try, you fail to mention the shoulder charge tackle with no arms, i.e. penalty try and 2 extra points for Ireland. So the foot is a non-event...

[SolracFS]

I have the suspicion that this channel is run anonimously by all head coaches in an effort to improve refereeing, and that Rassie Erasmus created it