There are a lot of people who left the Rugby World Cup Final between the All Blacks and the Springboks feeling confused. I’ve been watching rugby my whole life, and I’m still scratching my head. Just who was actually refereeing this match? Wayne Barnes didn’t do a very good job of convincing me that he was the man in charge. His actions seemed more in keeping with that of a puppet, ultimately at the total mercy of television match offical Tom Foley, an over-bearing puppet master who kept Barnes on tight strings.

The officials at this World Cup, in the quarter-finals and semi-finals had done so well not to devolve the game into a TMO slow-mo fest after the criticism they from the ridiculous Tom Curry red card. But this run of pragmatic interpretation of head contact rules ended abruptly in the final, of all games, with what can only be described as as an officiating farce.

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