Rugby Referee Analysis: Ben O'Keeffe | Springboks vs Australia 2023

I'll start by saying that overall I thought the officiating was good. In general I think Ben O'Keeffe is a good ref, and what I like the most about him is the fact that he is one of the very refs that will publicly admit if he made a mistake and then he'll discuss his decision making in making that mistake. He's not like most refs, who hide behind closed doors and play the whole "refs are human" excuse card. Now, Ben did have a shocker in the Super Rugby final, I don't think anybody can deny that, but he got attacked on social media by fans and they attacked him with personal stuff. I'm all for if he criticizing a ref for his officiating that happened on the field, but that gives nobody the right to attack a ref on his personal life, people who do that are stupid, there's no other way to say it. I just wanted to make that clear because it's childish and stupid to attack a ref on social media with stuff that is absolutely nothing related to his performance. If you want to criticize the ref, keep your criticism about his officiating.

No that I got that out of the way, in this game my issues were more with the AR's at scrum time and then the TMO also missed a few stuff. There was a few mistakes from Ben O'Keeffe himself, but that's going to happen in rugby. The first part I show some foul play from Marika Koroibete, who made 2 questionable tackles. Now he has shown he has a history of this where he does not use arms and just dives shoulder first into a ball carrier. 2 of them were not even checked by the TMO, then on the 2nd one as well, we have Willie le Roux going into the face of the ref and trying to milk a yellow card from the ref. Now I do think the tackle should be checked, but the way Willie le Roux acted there was unacceptable, and also has a history of this. This is classic Johny Sexton behaviors where a player is milking the situation. I hate that and feel like it should be stopped. I honestly wouldn't mind if the penalty got overturned and Willie got penalized. Not to mention the SA Broadcaster who is trying to show the replay multiple times without the ref going to the TMO, which indicates they're trying to force the ref to use the TMO. Which is another thing I hate, the broadcaster should not play the role of TMO, the TMO should check it on his own.

Then there also was a tackle by Pieter Steph du Toit, when I saw it life I thought it was going to be checked by the TMO because PSDT just dived into the head of a ball carrier with his shoulder. It was reckless. This happened fast, so I can understand the ref missing it, but the TMO should help him there.

Then there were the scrums that I thought was poorly handled by Ben as well as his AR's. But mostly his AR's as in most cases he was on the other side of the scrum where it collapsed, and the AR had clear vision of it, but never told him. Which led to scrums being reset, that should've been penalties to SA. I also wasn't a fan of Ben not rewarding SA for a dominant scrum. He was inconsistent the whole time at scrum. He keeps telling SA to use the ball, when the scrum was collapsed by Australia before the ball was available. Then on other cases he'll reward the penalty. It was just inconsistent at scrum time.

But like I said, if we look at the full game overall, I think he had a good game. But was not a fan of the AR's, who were - Paul Williams (NZR), Andrea Piardi (FIR), as well as the TMO who was, Brendon Pickerill (NZR).

Lastly, I would also like to thank VHA Accounting Solutions for their partnership during this 2023 Rugby Championship. This video was sponsored by them. We look forward to a great partnership during this Rugby Championship

For this Video I used CoachPaint from TRACAB, they're the best in the industry with regards to telestration software:

Check them out on:

#CoachPaint
#Tracab

[IwasInThes]

What makes Ben O'Keefe such a great referee is his rapport with the players. Even after Willie le Roux's somewhat over-enthusiastic advice, he simply said: "thank you, Willie" and carried on. He is also not trigger-happy with handing out cards. Top referee.

[majorsmurf-productionsmsp]

The only one I'm worried about is the bad tackling of korobete a risk will end up hurting himself or someone else seriously one of these days

[lafras]

This was one of the better matches in terms of flow. There was no gross dirty play that was missed and yes no.11 tackling at first seem dangerous but not as bad as previously. In slomo it looks much worse. The ref cannot blow each and every mistake and the game was played at a nice pace....not stop start etc. There was no blatant mistakes costing any team to loose.

[kristian]

Koroibete was hassling Moodie the whole game, taking cheap shots, going high, grabbing him on the neck... seemed intentional to me

[andrewleigh]

As a ref you cannot catch each and every incident in the game, not humanly possible. You check the offside line and miss the shoulder, only one pair of eyes out there in the park. Thought the referee had a great game, used his assistant referees and the TMO very well. One of the better refereed games I have seen for a while. I liked his calm deliberate approach. I hate penalty tries but both were probably deserved.

[ynwa]

That Australian winger is a dirty player and must be banned. Same incident last championship with Mapimpi when he shoulder tackled Mapimpi on the line. Now his doing it to moodley

[staffy]

I thought as a officials team the game flowed a lot better, I wasn't paying attention to refereeing decisions the whole match I was focused on the great game of rugby, which should indicate that overall the ref team did a good job. the few things that were missed are understandable and mostly is balanced out at then end. 7/10 for me ;)

[MrBriang]

Liking the more balanced and level headed analysis and examples shown compared to when this channel first started - good job on this one, showing how both sides did benefit from the ref, in some instances, not being able to be "everywhere"
Agree that the Wallabies seemed to get away with too much at scrum time!!

[Blackbeard]

Great analysis TAS, well balanced and consideration given to ref line of sight. Nice technical breakdown without bashing the ref. 👍

[dougerrohmer]

I think the ref did ping the Boks for a not straight line out throw, and at that point I giggled because the Aussies had been getting away with it all along. But overall, the ref did a good job.

[TobiasBarnes]

Laughing at the South Africans in the comments who would have pulled up 1000 different ‘bad reffing’ calls if the wallabies had have won. Recurring theme in the comments on this channel. If SA win ‘great refs’, if SA lose ‘bad refs’.

[keanubahnsen]

Petition to let Rassie Erasmus do TMO ? 😂

[ShilohJacobs-bzqm]

It's extremely dangerous diving on top of a player on the ground.Le Roux's action absolutely normal.It's not as if there wasn't an issue here.

[johanvanzyl]

THIS WAS AS GOOD A PERFORMANCE AS ONE CAN WISH FOR FROM THE OFFICIALS. Tmo was also quick.

[wesley]

What about the Manie Libbok disallowed try. I thought PSdT only hit the Aussie player's arm to make him drop it and did not actually touch the ball itself. The Aussie try at the end was also the result of a very forward pass.

[naidoo]

Looks like wallies lucky not to lose by a much bigger margin 😮

[christiangerhardt]

Koroibete ahould have been given a red.

[andresdeks]

Well donr for being impartial, the aussie 11 has a serious history of dangerous play. Some players have a one off, but he really needs to be hauled in.

[Blackbeard]

Correct me if im wrong but didn't the rules recently change regarding non straight lineout, ref only penalises if the opposition contest, if they dont jump then play continues?

I thought ref had a great game but was let down by AR not communicating scrum collapse and TMO who uses hawkeye with 10 second delay is meant to pick up dangerous play the ref misses so dont understand how Aus 11 or SA 7 werent picked up by tmo and referred to the ref.

There was one other incident I noticed which was when SA no 9 attemps to play ball at back of a ruck but is pulled into ruck by Aus player and taken off his feet, 2nd AUS player then comes through and picks up ball from SA side of ruck and makes a break as deemed ball is out of ruck after scrumhalf is taken out, thus stopping a significant attack opportunity for SA, however I thought it was illegal to grab/interfere with scrumhalf at back of ruck.

[andy_olive]

Really like how you just do one video highlighting all the mistakes not just the ones one way or another. ;)