By DUNCAN JOHNSTONE - RugbyHeaven | Thursday, 15 November 2007
Wayne Barnes always loomed as central to any hopes Graham Henry had of retaining his All Blacks coaching job but to lay the blame for the World Cup failure at the feet of the referee is perhaps even stretching New Zealand's intense dislike for the English whistleman.
The word from the fly on the wall at the New Zealand Rugby Union's World Cup review is that Henry and his assistant coaches pointed the finger firmly at Barnes, emphasising that his inexperience and errors contributed heavily to New Zealand's shock quarter-final loss to France in Cardiff.
I have to admit that I was one of the first to vent some fury in the direction of Barnes in the aftermath of New Zealand's worst World Cup performance.
But never did I lay the blame solely on his inability to penalise France in the second half or his failure to pick up that obvious forward pass that led to a crucial French try in their comeback win, even when that win was just two points at 20-18.
For Henry to base his hopes of survival so heavily on Barnes now seems a bit rich given that he refused to utter a public condemnation of Barnes when we pushed him hard on that very subject when the All Blacks made their sorry return home.
He has continued to stay silent on the matter, content to allow the media to mount the evidence against Barnes. But the media have also been mounting evidence against Henry.
If it wasn't good enough for Henry to dish out the "sour grapes refereeing" line publicly, should it now be judged a worthy excuse behind closed doors?
Have five weeks of soul-searching really changed anything in this delayed review process?
That's what the wise men in Wellington will have to weigh up as they consider the future of Henry, Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith.
Given that NZRU chairman Jock Hobbs, who is on the review committee, has been the one person to publicly question Barnes, there's every reason to suggest Henry and his cohorts are likely to have received a sympathetic hearing.
Yes, Barnes was an influential factor, but the All Blacks' World Cup shortcomings lie deeper than that.
The NZRU must realise that. Unless, of course, they conveniently use Barnes as their own scapegoat after handing Henry everything he wanted only to come up empty-handed.
We regularly hear that to blame the referee is a sorry excuse. It's no different this time.
The All Blacks had enough possession and territory to take the Barnes factor right out of the equation.
That they didn't have the tactical nous to achieve that is the most damning factor to emerge from this shambles.
The physical and mental strength of the All Blacks failed to deliver under their first real test at the World Cup, just as they had dissolved so alarmingly in Melbourne a few months earlier in the Tri-Nations defeat to Australia.
If Henry feels so strongly about Barnes he should tell the New Zealand rugby public so. The same rugby public he short-changed during the Super 14. The same rugby public that he told he would haul in his rotation policy yet he kept it spinning at full cycle right up to the Cardiff shambles.
He should also tell the rugby world exactly that and this includes IRB's refereeing boss Paddy O'Brien.
If Barnes' effort was so poor in the eyes of the All Blacks bosses, shouldn't New Zealand be demanding it be looked at deeper?
Right now it seems little more than a convenient answer to why the most costly and highly anticipated World Cup campaign in New Zealand's history turned into rugby's biggest disaster.
Henry bristles when the word arrogance is used around his All Blacks.
Yet his continued utterances and belief that his methods this year were right reek of arrogance.
And to the greater rugby world, nothing would appear more arrogant than putting the blame on the ref.
The records will never read Wayne Barnes 20, New Zealand 18.
It will always be remembered as France's match and another example of the All Blacks choking on the biggest stage of all.
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