Buttering up ‘top bloke’ Barnes
All Blacks captain Richie McCaw has described controversial English referee Wayne Barnes as ‘‘a top bloke’’ and backed away from any blame-game over Rugby World Cup officiating from the last time the tournament was played in the north.
A young Barnes incurred the wrath of All Blacks and their fans as he made some controversial decisions when New Zealand were tumbled out of the 2007 tournament in the quarterfinals for the first time, losing to a fired-up French outfit in Cardiffin 2007.
In a scary case of de´ja` vu, the All Blacks are likely to play a quarterfinal in Cardiff at this year’s tournament and there’s a very strong likelihood the opposition will be France.
And Barnes is firmly in the frame for the All Blacks at this tournament, named to have the whistle for their opening match against Argentina at Wembley Stadium on Monday morning (NZ Time).
It seems time has been a great healer for McCaw after the 2007 exit surfaced in an extensive interview with Britain’s Sunday Times.
McCaw now sees his own team as the biggest culprits in that painful loss eight years ago, rather than aiming any remaining bullets at Barnes who continues to referee at the top, being on the current tournament panel.
‘‘If you keep looking at other people for their mistakes to cover up your problems then you are in trouble. From a player’s point of view I just knew we hadn’t played good enough. I have had quite a lot to do with Wayne since then and he is a top bloke. He does it for the right reasons and that’s all you want from the fellow in the middle,’’ McCaw told the Sunday Times.
That view is in contrast to McCaw’s 2012 best-selling biography Open Side where he blasted the appointment of Barnes and his subsequent performance at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.
‘‘I don’t blame Barnes, but I do blame the people who appointed the most inexperienced referee on the roster to a RWC quarterfinal between the hosts and the favourites. I thought both teams deserved a referee with experience,’’ McCaw said in his book.
‘‘My beef isn’t with Barnes so much as with his inexperience. This was Barnes’ biggest game by far. On the big stage, an inexperienced referee is likely to become so afraid of making a mistake that he stops mak- ing any decisions at all.
‘‘By the end of it, I thought Barnes was frozen with fear and wouldn’t make any big calls.’’
Elevated to greatness that comes with being the most-capped international rugby player and a skipper with an extraordinary success rate, including the 2011 World Cup triumph, the humble nature of McCaw comes across in the Sunday Times article.
That is highlighted by the direct quote: ‘‘I don’t want people to think I come across any different to any other Kiwi bloke. I want them to see me as someone who plays rugby and does that OK. It’s not hard to be like this if you just be yourself and I’ve always had a good bunch of mates outside of rugby that are pretty quick to knock you back to size.’’
With retirement talk swirling around McCaw at his fourth World Cup, the 34-year-old is clearly thankful to be participating and says his 2012 sabbatical was instrumental to having him fresh enough to oversee this defence of the Webb Ellis Cup.
‘‘I was thinking the four years leading up to the last one was pretty intense and I was like, ‘How the hell am I going to do that again? Do I really want to do that again?’ The break made me realise I still enjoy it and I still had a chance of making the team. And the team in 2012 carried on with the high standard and that excited me quite a lot. Having a good relationship with Steve Hansen was also important,’’ McCaw said.
‘‘We talked about it and he was pretty open. He said if your form drops to a point where you are in trouble about being picked we are not going to get to the point where it becomes a horrible situation. We will sit down and talk and make sure the right decision is made for everyone. That gave me a lot of comfort as well.’’
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I have had quite a lot to do with Wayne since then [2007] and he is a top bloke. He does it for the right reasons and that’s all you want from the fellow in the middle. Richie McCaw