In defence of Bryce Lawrence

The fall out from the second test between the Springboks and the British and Irish Lions continues with former England hooker Brian Moore placing some of the blame for the loss on New Zealand assistant referee Bryce Lawrence. It was Lawrence who spotted Springbok Schalk Burger gouging the eyes of Lions’ winger Luke Fitzgerald and reported it to referee Christophe Berdos with a recommendation of “at least a yellow card.”

“If Lawrence, as touch judge, is incapable of linking the vileness of an act occurring two feet away and the proper sanction of a red card, he is not fit to officiate,” wrote Moore in his Telegraph column.

However Lawrence has been backed up by New Zealand’s high performance referee manager Lyndon Bray, himself a former top whistler. “In terms of law, the ref is the guy who has to ultimately make the decision and I fully back what Bryce did,” Bray said.

In this respect, Bray is right and Moore is wrong. The ultimate decision should be, and was, left to Berdos who decided on a yellow card. In fact, Lawrence actually strayed from protocol in making his recommendation.

Assistant referees have drummed into them that they are there to assist the referee and that ultimately he is in charge and is quite within his rights to overrule even both assistants. In fact, assistant referees are specifically told not to give the referee a recommendation unless he asks for one.

In this particular incident it appeared that Berdos did not fully understand what Lawrence was relaying to him as he appeared to be awarding only a penalty until called back by Lawrence. Watch the video, Berdos goes to move away but Lawrence pulls him back with his recommendation of “at least a yellow card.”

It appears that this all boils down to the language barrier as what Lawrence said was referee-speak for, “You didn’t ask for a recommendation but if you had it would be a red card.” Perhaps a native English speaker would have picked up on this.

Going back two Lions’ tours when the Lions met the Waratahs in a game which featured as many brawls as tries, Waratahs’ fullback Duncan McRae was sent off for repeatedly punching a prone Ronan O’Gara on a touch judge’s recommendation. In that situation referee Scott Young after hearing the report from touch judge Stu Dickenson asked, “Are you recommending a red card?” to which Dickenson replied, “Yes I am.”

Now that is not to absolve the officials of blame here because regardless of the issues there were communicating, there would be few, except Peter de Villiers, who would argue Burger deserved less than a red card. But let’s remember that it is the referee, not his assistants who have the final say on sanctions for players and perhaps Christophe Berdos should be copping the brunt of the flack, not Bryce Lawrence.

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The In defence of Bryce Lawrence by Hamish McBrearty, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.