Interesting selections for the match officials for the quarters.
Fra v SA has an all NZ quartet https://www.rugbyworldcup.com/2023/match/quarter-final-4-winner-pool-a-runner-up-pool-b#match_details
Ire v NZ has an all English quartet https://www.rugbyworldcup.com/2023/match/quarter-final-2-winner-pool-b-runner-up-pool-a#match_details
But the two lower ranked quarters (in terms of sides of the draw, and rankings coming into the tournament) both have mixed appointments.
Jaco Peyper heads up Wales v Arg https://www.rugbyworldcup.com/2023/match/quarter-final-1-winner-pool-c-runner-up-pool-d#match_details
And Mathieu Raynal has Eng v Fiji https://www.rugbyworldcup.com/2023/match/quarter-final-3-winner-pool-d-runner-up-pool-c#match_details
Its an interesting move, you could see the all English all NZ teams as looking to get a consistent view from the team, which sorta sounds like a good idea. Though depending on results either could be used exactly the same in the next matches, or be impossible depending on which teams go through.
The good news is there’s no experimenting with giving the whistle to inexperienced ref’s, probably the one the NH has seen the least is Ben O’Keefe, but he’s taken the whistle in a bunch of finals footy down here and has a pretty good temperament for it.
He’s also been pretty adaptable at refereeing to they style requested by the organisers too, say where Super Rugby is really clear on jackals supporting body weight and entry to rucks, but international rugby giving much more lee way - he seems to get the balance on point for whatever series he’s in.
Am very happy to see Barnes ref another WC QF which they might lose. Hope for his sake he doesn’t miss anything important…
The forward pass in '07 was the score people remember, but it wasn’t the actual problem; especially back then some passes would get missed. He was just completely over his head and stopped making decisions and that ended up being the key to the French killing the ABs in rucks and defence.
Unfortunately us kiwis behaved very poorly afterwards, and couldn’t let it go. But, he became a very good referee quite quickly after that and is still one of the better ones around at the moment. I don’t think there’d be many kiwis who aren’t happy to have him in charge, even though his head contact decision process last time around against Ireland was a bit suspect (although later backed up by WR1)
1 Just for clarity, WR confirmed that you can deliberately tackle upright, have a head to head clash, break the cheek and concuss an opposition player, but so long as you stop and try to hug them at the moment of contact it counts as a “soak” or “passive” tackle and is totally fine.2
2 To make it clear, I don’t care that it was an Irish player doing it to an All Black, what pisses me off is the goddamn stupidity (and inconsistency) in adopting an approach of carding people to try to force them to tackle lower & safer, then letting them tackle upright. This, when all the studies point out that its the most likely way to cause a concussion because two heads are in the dangerzone rather than one.