So what are all those penalties for? Is there some way to quantify and analyse them? Luckily, thanks to the South African Rugby Referees’ site, there is. The penalties are broken down into four categories: Tackle/Ruck/Maul (TRM), offside, scrum and discipline. That last category is somewhat all encompassing, running from high tackles to throwing the ball away.

Breaking those numbers down into percentages makes for some very interesting reading.

As you can see, the All Blacks give away a higher proportion of offside penalties, while the Boks get hammered in the scrums. Despite all the talk about Richie McCaw’s tactics, it’s the Aussies who give away the most penalties at the breakdown.

Some have also suggested that McCaw gives away more penalties than any other in the Tri Nations, well I have those numbers too.

So McCaw is the leading cuprit by a mile when it comes to conceding penalties, and somehow he managed to concede five of those in just one game. Yet McCaw claims players need to adapt to the referees’ rulings, coming from the most penalised player in the Tri Nations, this is a little rich.

As an All Blacks fan, I’m delighted with how well the team is playing, and I hope their winning ways continue into the 2011 Rugby World Cup, but critics from all around the world have continued to point out these issues with the All Blacks’ game plan and here in New Zealand the best the media can do is accuse them of whinging. Well I happen to agree with McCaw when he says statistics do not always tell the full story, the yellow card stats being an obvious example, but in this case they paint a pretty compelling picture.

Rather than sweep this under the rug, the New Zealand rugby media need to actually put the hard questions to the All Blacks, rather than writing some of the self-indulgent drivel about how great we are. Perhaps then, when the penalty stats aren’t so skewed against us we can dismiss Aussies, Saffas and Poms as whingers.

One final stat that caught my eye, over the Tri Nations 20 different All Blacks have been penalised, 22 Springboks and just 15 Wallabies. Granted the Wallabies have one fewer game on the board, but it goes to show that aside from a few blips like McCaw and Pocock, penalties are fairly evenly shared out.

Matt has come under attack from Herald on Sunday editor Paul Lewis, which he expertly rebuffs as well as Sky Sports Bevan Sanson who attempts to counter Matt’s argument, only to further prove it.

As Matt points out, the All Blacks are the most penalised team in this year’s Tri-Nations, having picked up a total of 56 penalties in five games. By contrast the Aussies have 23 from three games and South Africa 34 from four games.

When turned into a penalties per game stat the reading is not pretty for All Black fans.

As you can see, the All Blacks concede almost three more penalties per game that the Boks and just under 3.5 more than the Wallabies.

The historical stats are not much better. Here’s the same table dating back to 2008.

So both the Wallabies and Springboks are giving away far fewer penalties than their historical averages, while the All Blacks are about the same. The other interesting note is that over this same period both the Boks and Wallabies have received seven yellow cards, while the All Blacks have just four, but this is one instance where the numbers do not tell the full story, context really matters so I’m setting that issue aside for now.

To claim that the All Blacks “get away” with more because they are playing so well right now flies in the face of reality. Sanson claimed that, “They are also smarter, enabling them to “bend” the rules to their advantage,” which is a nonsense.

As Matt rightly points out, the All Blacks seem prepared to give away as many penalties as they need to, keeping their line intact as penalty goals cannot beat tries. The fact that the All Blacks have given away more penalties than their opponents in every single one of their outings seems to confirm this.

Some of us in the New Zealand media need to face up to the facts that the All Blacks are not perfect and no matter how well they are playing, they should never be immune to criticism. Currently their tactics seem to be a little cynical, and I applaud guys like Matt for pointing this out.

Never dismiss well thought out criticism as whinging, even if it is from an England based Aussie.

Now, I just need to clear up a couple of things. The data is slightly skewed by Drew Mitchell’s red card but not in the way you would expect; the Wallabies actually scored four more points than the All Blacks after Mitchell was dismissed. Secondly these are point differentials per yellow card. I.e. what points advantage does the team with the superior numbers have.

Now the first thing you’ll notice here is that this stat has been in decline for a number of years before spiking this year. The overall average across all seasons is just over four points.

Also the number of yellow cards bounces around a lot, going as high as eight in 2009 and 2010, to as low as two in 2008.

Other observations I’ve made while researching this: Teams almost always score some points while an opponent is in the bin, and teams with a player in the bin rarely score tries. Hardly earth shattering revelations, I know.

Overall, it’s an interesting exercise to see just how a yellow card affect the outcome of a game. While it’s only worth, on average, four points to the opponent, teams that pick up more yellow cards than their opponents only manage to win around 18% of the time.

Is it the exhaustion, or the emotional drain of playing with the backs to the wall? Hard to say, but the numbers clearly say that even though yellow cards have little effect on the scoreline, they have a major impact on the result.

Firstly, errors. I absolutely think there have been four errors when it comes to yellow cards. Danie Rossouw should not have been yellow carded for his nudge on Richie McCaw, nor should Drew Mitchell have received his yellow for a shoulder charge. On the flip side, Richie McCaw should have been yellow carded for repeat infringements by Alain Rolland in Wellington and Tony Woodcock should have gone for his illegal charge on Saia Faingaa.

Now while the All Blacks’ penalties per yellow card is still higher in the adjusted figures, it’s within an acceptable deviation. As I’ve pointed out before, refereeing errors are very much swings and roundabouts, right now they seem to be going in favour of the All Blacks, but that will correct itself over time.

Secondly, the historical data paints a different picture.

Notice that in 2008 the Wallabies did not receive a single yellow card. That’s right, the Wallabies conceded 62 penalties without receiving a single yellow card, but these sorts of localized patterns tend to pop up in small data samples.

There have been the same number of yellow cards in just five games this season as there were in all nine last year, but that stat has been steadily going up since 2008.

It’s also worth noting the types of yellow cards dished out, are they for a single act of foul play as Danie Rossouw’s supposedly was, or are they the culmination of repeated warnings from the referee. Thanks to the South African Rugby Referees, we can take a look at that.

In the last two Tri-Nations, because that’s all I could find, the Wallabies have received seven yellow cards, six of them for dangerous tackles and one to Drew Mitchell for repeated team infringements. That sort of a pattern seems to indicate that appart from some poor tackles, the Wallabies keep themselves out of trouble in other areas.

The Springboks have the most varied record, picking up a total of six yellow cards. Three for professional fouls, two for dangerous tackles, and one for foul play (Rossouw). This time, the pattern here seems to be the Boks infringe when they are under pressure.

The All Blacks have received just three yellow cards in the past two Tri-Nations, Isaac Ross for a professional foul, Isia Toeava and Owen Franks for dangerous tackles. It looks to me like the All Blacks fall somewhere in between their Southern Hemisphere rivals in terms of a pattern.

The last stat I wanted to show is, to me, the most interesting. The total number of penalties conceded in the last three Tri-Nations as both a number and a percentage. Here they are.

That’s right, the All Blacks are the most penalised team in the competition. In fact, if you’re a stats geek, they are the only team more than one standard deviation away from the mean.

So it looks to me that this year is something of a statistical blip which will be consigned to the history books. There is no vast conspiracy to see the All Blacks win, no bias towards a particular team from the referees. The numbers don’t lie, they show that these things regress towards a mean as many sports statistics do and while the All Blacks have the numbers in their favour now, it means sooner or later the numbers will go against them.

How else do the Wallabies go from receiving no yellow cards in 2008 to receiving the most in 2009? It’s the ebb and flow of psychic energy and I can’t believe I just quoted Murray Mexted.

Looking at this from a slightly All Blacks centric view point, as those are the only games I’ve watched every minute of, let’s go back to the beginning of the international season where the All Blacks took on Ireland in New Plymouth. Unfortunately it’s very difficult to comment on Wayne Barnes’ performance as the game was over as a contest at the 14 minute mark when Barnes quite rightly sent off Jamie Heslop for two attempted knees to the head of an opponent.

Games where the result is in no doubt are easy from a technical refereeing stand point, decision making is not so crucial, but man management is as these games can easily descend into brawls. Barnes did a good job in this respect, but I’m reserving judgement on his overall performance due to the nature of the game.

Next came the two tests against Wales, controlled by South Africans Mark Lawrence and Jonathan Kaplan. Nothing really leaps out in my mind about these performances, so they can’t have been particularly noteworthy. I’m sure if I sat down and watched these games again I could nit pick some incidents, but it’s the overall picture I’m looking at here.

Moving on to the highlight of the international season for the Southern Hemisphere, the Tri-Nations. The 2010 edition kicked off in Auckland where the All Blacks took on the Springboks in a game controlled by Irishman Alan Lewis.

Lewis’s biggest issue in this game, aside form missing Bakkies Botha’s headbutt, was his fitness. In an up tempo game where the All Blacks ran the Boks ragged, Lewis was notably slow in the final quater of the game. Positioning is 90% of refereeing, if you’re not in position you can’t make the right decisions. Lewis often wasn’t prompting All Blacks assistant coach Wayne Smith to offer some simple advice: “Get fitter.”

A week later fellow Irishman Alain Rolland took charge as the All Blacks again faced the Springboks in Wellington. Rolland will be remembered for two incidents in that game, the first when he yellow carded Danie Rossouw for no more than a nudge with his boot on McCaw, and secondly for not yellow carding McCaw after he gave away no fewer four penalties at the breakdown.

George Clancy, another Irishman, did not exactly cover himself in glory, turning in a somewhat mediocre performance when the Boks played the Wallabies, handing out a couple of soft-ish yellow cards for ‘tip tackles’ although it is hard to hold that against referees when everyone knows this focus comes from much higher up the food chain.

The first Bledisloe Cup test between Australia and New Zealand followed on and was adequately controlled by Craig Joubert. I applauded his fortitude in showing Drew Mitchell a red card for his second yellow card offense, but on repeat viewing of Mitchell’s first offense, as reported by assistant referee Cobus Wessels, think Mitchell was a little hard done by. In the context of the game I can certainly understand Wessels’ actions, but it did detract from what could have been an excellent game.

Interesting note here, every Tri-Nations game up to this point included at least one yellow card.

Finally we come to the most recent Tri-Nations game, between New Zealand and Australia again, this time controlled by Jonathan Kaplan. Kaplan is a hands-off sort of referee, often preferring to let minor infringements slide when they have little or no impact on the game, in refereeing circles this is referred to as “material effect”. However Kaplan allowed both teams to effectively slow each other’s ball down at the breakdown, something the All Blacks were more adept at doing than the Wallabies, leading to a somewhat uneventful second half.

Perhaps Kaplan’s biggest failing was not yellow carding All Black prop Tony Woodcock for a nasty off the ball hit on Wallaby hooker Saia Faingaa. The footage of this incident should be replayed to referees at all levels with a banner reading “this is what yellow cards were invented for” flashing on the screen.

Whether IRB referee boss Paddy O’Brien will take action against Kaplan, as he did after Wessels’ performance,  remains to be seen but based on past experience I doubt anything will happen. Usually when we hear about “accountability” among referees it means dropping the inexperienced guy for an error but ignoring the errors from the more established guys.

An obvious example of this was the standing down of assistant referee Josh Noonan in round one of the Super 14 this year when he mistakenly flagged the ball as being in touch when it wasn’t. While Noonan was roundly criticized for this, little was said about Stu Dickinson mistakenly awarding a fair catch when a player dropped the ball in the same round.

Now you may have noticed something of a pattern in these errors I’ve highlighted, they all seem to favour the All Blacks. Others have noticed this too and try to invent reasons for these patterns such as bias from the referees, or some global conspiracy to drum up support for the Rugby World Cup next year. To that I say: Hanlon’s Razor, the Law of Large Numbers and the 2007 Rugby World Cup quarter final.

WINNERS

Richie McCaw. The All Black captain showed once again that’s he’s the best in his position, claiming a number of turnovers at the breakdown and acting as a link man when running with the ball out wide. Sure he gave away a couple of penalties but that’s in the job description for a good opensider.

David Pocock. A shining beacon in a Wallabies pack which was totally dominated, Pocock showed that he could one day be a player of Richie McCaw’s level. Pocock claimed a number of crucial turnovers at the breakdown and never gave up, toiling tirelessly up against the more powerful All Black pack.

Mils Muliaina. Some have suggested that Muliaina is too old and too slow for international rugby, but on Saturday night he proved the detractors wrong. Steady and safe at the back, as we’ve come to expect, he also sparked a number of counterattacks from the back and even picked up a try with some wonderful work down a narrow blindside.

LOSERS

Tony Woodcock. How Woodcock has escaped being cited so far for his cheap shot on Saia Faingaa is beyond me. It was cheap, it was calculated and it was exactly the kind of Bakkies Botha-like thuggery which has no place on the rugby field. Sure it wasn’t worthy of a red card, or a lengthy suspension, but when compared with Quade Cooper or Jacques Fourie’s suspensions, it does make a mockery of the citing system.

Matt Giteau. Pointing the finger at Will Genia for the Wallabies’ impotent backline is missing the true cause of their problems. Too often Genia was ready to deliver from the base of the ruck, but Giteau was either out of position or still marshalling the troops. Unlike his opposite, Giteau seems to be little threat with the ball in hand and is unable to freeze defenders like he used to. For the Wallabies, the end of Quade Cooper’s suspension cannot come quickly enough.

Richard Brown. Completely missing in action, both at the breakdown and with the ball in hand, Brown surely is not the answer for the Wallabies at 8. Even with a scrum going backwards, a number eight should be able to generate some go-forward, Brown provided none. As the Wallabies move forward to their tour of South Africa, Brown needs to either greatly improve his play or be discarded.

Within the first paragraph, Rattue makes reference to the clip being on YouTube as fans were not shown the incident during the live broadcast but then fail to provide a link to said clip. Bad online journalism there, if you’re going to reference a source of material, at the very least link to it.

Here’s the clip

As you can see, Drew Mitchell hits Richie McCaw without the ball and was flagged for this by assistant referee Jonothan Kaplan who then recommended a yellow card. Rattue takes issue with this, labeling it “soft” and claiming that “rugby is stark raving bonkers to send blokes off in test matches for such innocuous incidents.”

But let’s take a closer look and examine the basis of Kaplan’s recommendation: the laws of the game. Clearly the tackle is off the ball which falls under law 10.4 (e): A player must not tackle an opponent early, late or dangerously.

Alright, under that law Kaplan was right to flag Mitchell but if that was his only offense then surely a penalty would have sufficed. However watch Mitchell’s arms, he extends them out in a pushing motion, at no time does he attempt to wrap up or grasp McCaw. Is this a legal tackling technique?

Law 10.4 (g) states: A player must not charge or knock down an opponent carrying the ball without trying to grasp that player. The last three words are the key here. While Kaplan’s wording when reporting the incident, “late and no arms” may seem wrong to the casual observer, under the laws of the game he is correct as he is stating the tackle was late, which is was, and the tackler did not use his arms legally.

Many referees use a “double whammy” standard where if a player commits two penalty offenses at the same time, then a yellow card will result. For example a late shoulder charge or an intentional knock on while standing offside. This seems to be an accepted refereeing standard to apply at all levels.

Rattue then goes on to focus on the second yellow picked up by Mitchell.

Mitchell perhaps got what he deserved – under the dubious current rules – when he prevented Conrad Smith from taking a quick lineout throw later on and was red-carded for a second yellow card offence.

The Wallabies knew both teams were on a final warning for obstruction, and rugby is wise to stamp out sneaky delaying tactics.

Looking at the forest rather than the trees, though, Mitchell’s sending off was a nonsense.

Here’s where I utterly disagree with Rattue. Having dished out a warning for delaying the play, referee Joubert was left with no option but to yellow card the next player who did it, and to give Mitchell a free pass because he was already on a yellow card would be nonsense.

Watch a football game where a player gets yellow carded, he will tone down his play and try to avoid situations where another yellow is possible, Mitchell did quite the opposite of this and put himself in a situation where a second yellow was a near certainty.

The red card is, I believe, not used often enough in rugby because from that point on the game is over as a contest. 14 men simply cannot beat 15, and for that reason referees are loathe to use it, in fact not a single player was red carded during this year’s Super 14.

But in situations where the referee is left with little choice, such as Joubert was with Mitchell and Wayne Barnes was with Jamie Heslop, we as fans need to support the referees and realize that they are only reacting to what the players have done. There was a chain of events which led to Mitchell’s dismissal, all of which were in the players’ hands.

Finally there’s something of a hot button issue I want to comment on. The IRB is trying to eliminate shoulder charges and tip tackles from the game entirely. This is why referees seem to be so harsh on these, it’s not a case of sanitising the game, it’s a case of trying to make the game safer for all players. I personally know of two amateur referees who had their playing careers ended by tip tackles.

Once players realize that these two types of foul play will not be tolerated by referees or judicial panels, they will become a rarity on the field and we will have a safer game at all levels. Until then referees will continue to be put in a difficult situations and clueless columnists will have fodder for their ill-informed rants.

It will be argued by many Australian media and supported (yes GreenAndGoldRugby.com, I’m looking at you) that Mitchell was hard done by, but it was actually the result of some good refereeing and Craig Joubert being unafraid to make the tough call.

Mitchell’s first yellow card is indisputable, especially when viewed after Owen Franks’s yellow card for a similar infringement earlier. It’s one of those silly shoulder charges which happens occasionally and gets dealt with appropriately.

Late in the first half referee Joubert called out both captains and explained to them that both teams were interfering with players attempting to take quick taps from penalties and asked that both teams cut it out. “I will escalate to yellow cards if I have to,” was Joubert’s parting words.

Fast forward to the second half and Conrad Smith attempts to take a quick lineout, only to have the ball slapped out of his hands by Mitchell. Clearly the referee’s patience had run out with this sort of play and he called Mitchell and the captain over for a chat.

Here is where a lesser referee would have chickened out and not issued Mitchell his second yellow card and given another warning which would have made a farce of his earlier warning. Referees are loath to bring out their red card, but to not yellow card a player simply because he has already seen one is highly damaging to a referee’s credibility.

Instead Joubert told Wallaby captain Rocky Elsom and Mitchell that he took “no responsibility for how this decision affects the outcome of the game”, showed Mitchell a yellow card, followed by the red. And the referee should not have to take responsibility for that, as both incidents view in isolation are clearly worth a yellow card, and both required Mitchell to first put himself in a situation where a yellow card was likely.

So congratulations to referee Joubert for having the testicular fortitude to produce a red card in a situation where far too many referees would wimp out. There should be no difference between what is required to receive a first, or second yellow card and tonight Joubert proved himself capable of doing just that.

My own view is that a nine week ban is long enough, only because it covers the rest of the Tri-Nations, which is probably why the number was chosen. I also think that the head-butt contributed to Botha’s yellow card after 13 for a professional foul, neither the referee nor his assistants saw the head-butt but it was replayed a number of times on the big screen and they would have certainly been aware of it.

First my arch-nemesis Chris Rattue from the New Zealand Herald.

Nine weeks sounds like a long rugby ban.

In the case of Bakkies Botha it isn’t long enough.

Botha should have got a year for what he did to Jimmy Cowan at Eden Park, also taking into account his history of thuggery.

Why a year? Well, I’ve plucked that figure out of the air, but it sounds about right, and much more right than nine weeks.

And to a point, he has it right. Botha is, in many respects, a throwback to the days when players meted out justice on the field but with more than 20 cameras pointed at the game, those days are long gone.

The Press rugby writer Richard Knowler labels Botha a ‘nutter’ and chronicles his many suspensions.

This incident was the latest in a raft of nasty incidents that have blighted Botha’s career and it is not only international opponents who have felt his wrath. Crusaders fans might recall he was rubbed out of the Bulls’ Super 14 semifinal in Soweto because he had been suspended for smashing Stormers fullback Gio Aplon in a ruck cleanout.

Last year Botha copped a three-week rest for belting Waratahs skipper Phil Waugh and was later controversially banned for two weeks for a dangerous charge on British and Irish Lions prop Adam Jones. Ironically, Botha was innocent on that occasion, with even Jones stating the suspension was unwarranted. Yet many people felt it was karma catching up with him.

In late 2002, Botha announced his arrival on the international circuit by being yellow-carded for stomping in his test debut against France and the following year he received an eight-week holiday for attacking the face of Wallaby hooker Brendan Cannon.

TVNZ’s John McBeth even said before the game that he hoped Botha would not stoop to his notorious illegal play. Unfortunately he did.

I didn’t mention anything about the forward play or tactics or the like. I simply stated that I hoped Bakkies Botha would play the game cleanly and not sink to his notorious low standards of illegal play.

Sadly, Botha let himself and his team down- yet again.

The reaction in the Republic has been largely the same as here in New Zealand, why did he do it? Independent Online’s Peter Bills also asks if Botha should be selected again for the Springboks given his appalling disciplinary record.

How much longer can South Africa afford Bakkies Botha and his crass indiscipline?

How can Springbok coach Peter de Villiers keep choosing Botha when he clearly cannot rely on him to keep his discipline?

Fans over at the Time Online comments say Botha is an embarrassment to the Springboks and his actions contributed to the loss.

The final word goes to my friends over at Ruggaworld, an excellent South African rugby blog, where one of their regular commenters had this to say:

They should have banned him for 12 months…….Boks need to send him packing until he sort out his kak. Danie (Rossouw) is playing much better than him in anyway.