We’ve all heard Springbok coach Peter de Villiers’s crazy theories about some refereeing conspiracy against his team, but I disagree. From what I’ve seen so far this international season, the referees have been consistent. Consistently bad that is.

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.