Bryce Lawrence will not referee on South African shores.

This courtesy of Sport 24.

Lawrence’s control of the October 9 quarter-final, won 11-9 by Australia to end South Africa’ reign as world champion, was strongly criticised by Springboks players, coaching staff and fans.

Retiring Springboks captain John Smit said “the one positive (of retirement) is that I won’t ever have to be reffed by him again” and a South African fan began a Facebook campaign entitled “Petition To Stop Bryce Lawrence Ever Reffing A Rugby Game Again.”

“I’m not totally concerned,” Lawrence told Radio Sport. “I know a lot of other people like the New Zealand Rugby Union and SANZAR do have some serious concerns.

“In all honesty I’m not going to go over there if there’s any personal threat or I have concerns about my safety because in the end it’s a job, I know that, and also it’s just a sport so I’m not going to put myself at risk.”

Lawrence said he had thought about his performance in the quarter-final every day since the match and accepts he made errors.

“My quarter-final performance created a lot of negative reaction in South Africa, pretty hostile, very personal, very harsh,” he said. “Also, on the flipside of that, I got a lot of really strong positive support from rugby people in New Zealand and around the world who probably know me a little bit more than the people in South Africa and were feeling for me during that time.

“… I was disappointed with some aspects in my own performance that day after refereeing four really pretty strong games in pool play. I’m not blaming anyone for the quarterfinal refereeing display apart from myself. I didn’t referee as well as I could.”

Lawrence said he recognised he would be punished for his performance.

“Look there has been some pretty clear consequences from my quarter-final display,” he said. “I’m not going to be refereeing Six Nations next year.

“They can say that means I’m rested but in reality I accept that one of the consequences of my performance is that I’m not going to be doing Six Nations.”

A dark alley in a city with no witnesses comes to mind.

Let him ref on SA shores, it's rugby fields he should be kept away from.

Yeah, beach rugby.

I always think it is sad when bully boy behaviour wins.

Anyone who has threatened Lawrence's safety should never be allowed to attend a rugby match again.

As little as I rate Lawrence I think this is disgdaceful conduct and at odds with rugbys now obsolete history for respecting the ref.

As much as I agree that Bryce doesn't deserve any form of physical threat to his safety or that mental abuse is uneccesary, I accept the fact that he will bear the brunt of disgruntled fans's frustration.

The truth of the matter is though that the information coming out from the players does offer him little respite.

He certainly did not have to disregard the captain and vice captain's questions on how he would referee the areas of concern and his dismissive approach to john Smit during the match does him no favours either.

The point is John Smit has been an ambassador for the game for a long time and has never before been dismissed or his concerns disregarded in the manner Bryce Lawrence did in one of the most important games of the world cup, effectively making a farce of the situation.

That can unfortunately not be denied.

Yes he refereed poorly so what. Either get the IRB to do something or else get over it. This is a dark day for SA - when a referee cant visit the country without fear for his safety.

@ red_stag - not sure that respect for the ref has changed much amongst rugby fans - they've always been a necessary evil. Think that the hysteria that followed the Aus/SA & Samoa/SA games is just an unfortunate legacy of the internet - it's easy for anonymous morons to issue threats and insults without fear of retribution.

Why is it a dark day for SA?

There has been no threats apart from verbal abuse and millions of jokes.

Its a dark day for SA if threats to a referees safety keeps him out of the country.

Galted IMO the amount of post match abuse (at the top level only) levelled at referees nowadays is staggering compared to even 5 years ago.

This World Cup the treatment of certain referees was apalling and we saw same with Barnes in 2007. There have been referee mistakes before that but I think the reaction to them has gotten over the top in last 5 years.

I guess there are a number of ways to look at it.

First, did he have a poor match? Yes.
Does he admit it. Yes.
Did other 'top level' referees have poor matches in the RWC? Yes.
Is there a general discomfort about the quality of refereeing at the top level now? Yes.
Was his refereeing the difference between the Boks getting to the final or not? No.
Is this an over reaction? In my opinion, yes.

doctor_grey wrote:I guess there are a number of ways to look at it.

First, did he have a poor match? Yes.
Does he admit it. Yes.
Did other 'top level' referees have poor matches in the RWC? Yes.
Is there a general discomfort about the quality of refereeing at the top level now? Yes.
Was his refereeing the difference between the Boks getting to the final or not? No.
Is this an over reaction? In my opinion, yes.

?

Agree red_stag that the amount of abuse is staggering & it is sad to see, but it all seems to be people using the internet as a shield - don't know if you ever went on the football threads on the old 606 - the abuse would start 1 or 2 posts in. Don't recall too many incidents where the ref was in actual danger springing to mind - David McHugh's in SA is one.

Biltong,
I know he had a poor match. But my question was whether the Boks were really good enough to get to the final and possibly win it, regardless? I don't think so. Doesn't excuse the poor performance, but the reaction seems disproportionate.

I'd say Barnes' performance in 07 was just as bad if not worse. I'm sure he was talked to about it afterwards. He is still refereeing, he took charge of the NZ Ireland test last year in NZ and was at the Cup obviously. Of course some might say he hasn't improved as much as they'd like with Hook's kick being an example but at least he got the chance.

Just wondering about the double standards though-a player can have a shocker, get dropped and come back a while later. Referees are different and obviously this will hurt Lawrence's career-deservedly so as he had a shocker. Hopefully he can improve as a ref and get back to a position where he can ref top games again, though appointments have to take sensitivity in mind (hence Barnes didn't ref the 11 final).

He had a mare but so did Joubert, Barnes and a couple of others. France haven't done the same with Joubert.

Like I said in a previous post, I think I can safely say that the best team in the tournament won the World Cup. But there was some shocking refereeing in far too many of the games along the way. Kind of a sadistic Machiavellianism to get the best team out of that don't you think?

doctor_grey wrote:I guess there are a number of ways to look at it.

First, did he have a poor match? Yes.
Does he admit it. Yes.
Did other 'top level' referees have poor matches in the RWC? Yes.
Is there a general discomfort about the quality of refereeing at the top level now? Yes.
Was his refereeing the difference between the Boks getting to the final or not? No.
Is this an over reaction? In my opinion, yes.

I agree, although we will never know if his refereeing was the difference of them getting to the final or not. It's just very sad that a referee feels he can't officiate in a certain place due to their own personal safety - that's something I'd expect more form wendyball than rugby.

One thing that did concern me with his quotes was that he felt he had strong games during the group stages. I'm sorry but like biltongbek says for the Aus SA game, he was off hand and unapproachable during these games too, as well as making some mistakes. He just happened to be much worse during the Aus SA game!

disneychilly wrote:I'd say Barnes' performance in 07 was just as bad if not worse. ...
Just wondering about the double standards though-a player can have a shocker, get dropped and come back a while later.

Was going to post the same Disney and as we know only too well in time the 'pain' becomes 'commentary' and in the end the impact of a ref on 'ONE' match gets everyone nowhere, except possibly in this case Lawrence himself who has learned another lesson about the importance of maintaining a high standard of refereeing and the impact of not reaching those standards.

In terms of players performances between them I reckon Smit and pdv between them have caused SA more in terms of bad performances than any ref ever could. Smit has been able to continue on the field match after match as a player, poor performances one after the other for a good 2 years now.

He gets selected primarily on the basis of his captaincy and respect of achievements gone well by now rather than his abilities as an actual player. Du Plessis has consistently outperformed him yet even now continues on the bench while SA lose matches they probably shouldnt. Plain and simply that is poor doctrine and obviously lessons need to keep being learned. It just may have had to take someone outside SA to have given it the final prod- If anything Lawrence has contributed to speeding up the SA rebuilding process as when the real analysis is done it will be obvious 'selection' is by far the biggest issue facing SA over the last two years. In short they were naive thinking they would use the same 2007 template and players to win this again.

After the Oz match SA would have been crushed by a peaking AB side- especially with an injured Brussouw and after the tough matches they had- 2 potential losses to Samoa and Wales, then Oz, the only convincing matches against Fiji and Namibia- not enough to suggest they were capable of winning this.

SA have the players- they just arent picking them. Lawrence is just another red herring in the process.

You could say Barnes on the other hand likely cost NZ a 3rd title, being favourites to win at the time. NZ went from a lowest 40-0 win in pool play to a loss where a poor ref was involved- not two narrow wins- I think a much tougher pill to swallow at the time- 'form' not a reason for the explanation.

So Lawrence, like other refs, have to take the knocks- but agree with some posters, the attacks are misguided as they were with Barnes. There have been posts suggesting how SA can move forward and hopefully that is where the energy and emotion goes, because clearly most of that is spent unnecessarily on Lawrence.

Cool heads are required and unfortunately that just takes time. SA have that time now so should use it wisely.

NZ did.

Still doesn't take the pain away for mine. I mean I'm ecstatic that the All Blacks won but that was 2011 and 2007 will always be there. Part of me is glad that another team knows what it feels like to be in that situation but two wrongs don't make a right and it is a horrible trend to have in our great game. Looks like Biltong and the SA boys were also spared a lot of the schadenfreude and other jibes directed at NZ so at least they didn't have to suffer that, however they earned it on their great WC record. We are still only 2 from 7, a long way to go to get that stat where we'd like it.

Yes the one thing for sure is we know what its like. It comes from having such a long, long build up of excitement, tension, apprehension, months then weeks then days then hours of it it seems.

And in one blow suddenly theres nothing. A blank screen. Nothing to say or do, nowhere to go, just nothing.

In 2007 at full time I looked out the window at Wellington and wondered what all those people out there were thinking having gone through it all over again (and again, and again, and....). Oddly I was calm more concerned about how everyone else would take it.

Then enivitably as the reality sinks in after a few hours, days I joined the Wayne Barnes brigade cos it seemed the thing to do. We all knew the ABs would recover in time and would move on as would we all but we still had to have the answer. Why us? Why did it happen to us became "Why did he do it to us". In the one man lay the answer. Looking for Barnes apologies, how others viewed it etc... was a low period for many to be sure and everyone goes through it at some point. We just felt like we had got more than our fair share.

Thats why I've so respected how a person like Henry could do what he did under that massive disappointment, sense of shock and pressure. Here was his very career, livelihood, everything he wanted and stood for in life just having been flushed down the loo, going into the French changing room and congratulating them, and later not once pinning blame on Barnes tgo the media or as an excuse when he got home. Massive kudos and explains why he's there today. Only the rare ones have that sort of character.

Taylorman.

After the Oz match SA would have been crushed by a peaking AB side- especially with an injured Brussouw and after the tough matches they had- 2 potential losses to Samoa and Wales, then Oz, the only convincing matches against Fiji and Namibia- not enough to suggest they were capable of winning this.

firstly you are making a huge assumption there. secondly it is rather arrogant and suggesting SA was not up to the task.

These are the facts.

South Africa gained momentum with every match they played, they looked more composed and was defensively the top team in defence during the pool rounds, Australia only got a try from an illegally turned over ball when our defences weren't set up for defence, but rather to run the ball.

I am not going to debate whether it was Bryce Lawrence or the forward passes or the illegal tactics or the inability to score in spite of all those elements as we will not agree on them.

New Zealand looked good against an ineffective australian side during the semi final, and look decidedly poor under pressure against France.

to think NZ would have crushed us is in fact quite laughable.

SA would have beaten NZ. The Kiwis choked again in the final this time but pulled it off with a little help from Joubert

Gatts
Take a look at the scoreboard, and by the way joubert wasnt playing..

Oh yes he was!!

and in Black

More to the point, look at how the ABs played in the semi-final vs Aus - that's what SA was up against not the AB side from the week later. I think SA would have performed better than Aus did in that semi, but I don't know that they had enough to win it.

I am confident that had New Zealand met South Africa in the semi final, the ABs would have won soley from the perspective that they had more points in them than the Boks.But alas we will never know as it didnt happen and never will.

Kiwireddevil wrote:More to the point, look at how the ABs played in the semi-final vs Aus - that's what SA was up against not the AB side from the week later. I think SA would have performed better than Aus did in that semi, but I don't know that they had enough to win it.

Ah Kiwi, the sense of reason. The match up between SA and NZ would have been epic. Their RWC matches usually are. SA would have done better than OZ, New Zealand was in no doubt the best team in the tournamnet, before and during, but Sa would have applied more pressure and the game would have been tight, whichever way it went.

Biltong
And Bryce Lawrence wouldn't have been on the whistle.

Yeah, the almighty referee, but then again we would probably have had Stuart Dickinson.

biltongbek wrote:

Kiwireddevil wrote:More to the point, look at how the ABs played in the semi-final vs Aus - that's what SA was up against not the AB side from the week later. I think SA would have performed better than Aus did in that semi, but I don't know that they had enough to win it.

Ah Kiwi, the sense of reason. The match up between SA and NZ would have been epic. Their RWC matches usually are. SA would have done better than OZ, New Zealand was in no doubt the best team in the tournamnet, before and during, but Sa would have applied more pressure and the game would have been tight, whichever way it went.

Probably a fairer comment, though I don't believe SA would have done better than Oz in the semi. NZ were prepared for anything Oz threw at them and it showed with every single player on his game for the full 80- a rare sight in rugby at this level.

With that, AB will have known exactly what to expect because SA is about executing a very well known gameplan with some very predictable yet very effective players as efficiently as they can, and in this world cup they didnt do that against a top side convincingly. After a scratchy win against Wales this 'building' you mention was against Namibia then Fiji- it couldnt have been anywhere else as they then 'held out' Samoa as well, then lost to Oz in these well known circumstances. But in the tougher, tight matches they had control, but not any measure of domination where it mattered.

We'll never know but when the Oz SA match was over, I know I would have preferred SA over Oz in the semi, with their propensity, like France as it showed, to be more unpredictable.

You keep on saying you were less afraid of SA, and yet as much as you try to convince me that our predictability is our down fall, the results over the last four years prove otherwise.

I hope he referees the next bookkeeper test in SA.

He may have had a bad game in the RWC which the Bokke lost. But these reactions by fans are over the top.

He deserves the right to ref a fair game to show it was not him at fault.


Saying that, I have never rated him as a referee.

Maesteg, how will refereeing another match show him not to be at fault?

Be honest man, he f'''k up big time.

No worse than Chris white in Rome in 2007.

Bryce Lawrence is not the only reason SA were knocked out in the quarters.

No he is not, but he had a hell of a lot to do with it, the australian try came from 3 infringements by the same player.

He ruled two forward passes which taking momentum into account just added up to the way decisions went against us the whole day, and then allowing our bal to be slowed down to australia's benefit to organise defences.

My goodness but it is that hard to acknowledge what went on there.

This has nothing to do with chris White, this has to do with our quarter final match in 2011.

If i were you I would blame the IRB for not being able to manage consistency within the game and leave Lawrence alone.

Christ, talk about sour grapes! Give poor Lawrence a break and get on with it.

This is still going on? For goodness sake... it's time to move on.

Yes it is sour grapes if you want to see it that way.

Still doesn't take anything away from the facts.

He dismissed them pre match.
He ignored John Smit during the game
He fu....d us.

so yes, it is sour grapes.

And those sour grapes are justified. The only mistake John Smit did on the day was not to tell his men to take the law into their own hands. Perhaps then there would have been enough controversy because of it to actually get the IRB to investigate why Lawrence dismissed their concerns prematch and ignored the captain on the field.

It was clear Lawrence wasn't going to give us a fair deal, so the match was lost already, might as well have created enough poop to create more controversy.

Mate, we all want to wind the clock back and have the chance to do things differently every now and then.

If it helps - Australia / Australian teams have been on the rough end of the stick on many, many occasions in the Republic and elsewhere. We know how you feel. I don't agree with all you have said these last 6 weeks or so but I can empathise with you.

It's funny - some people say we aren't the best losers but I (can only speak for myself) have learnt to take a deep breath, have a scream or two... dream of retribution for about 10 seconds... then 'pick myself up' and look forward to the next encounter.

Does that help you in any way?

hey biltong, how are you?
Been watching this ref debate and have to admire the way you have fought your corner. Though I am disappointed you have said "to tell his men to take the law into their own hands".

JW spent his time cleaning up the bok's thuggish image, and play winning rugby without needing to take laws into their hands. Sure the boks always known to be hard players, but why start a fight on the pitch? good sides play to the ref, and to be fair the boks, like all sides, have at times got the rub of the green with refs.

I understand your pain man, but no different with the kiwis when they had all poccession and still lost, aided by a ref. There was a lot of hurt there too, but didn't hear them saying they should've take the law into their own hands.

Besides, true the boks have some big lads, but a little known secret is Quade's actually a platinum dan in the dark arts of unarmed combat!!

Oh, and I forgot to ask...

How's that lovely dog of yours? Please be kind to him/her... it's not his/her fault. Go on... give it a hug.

Yeah, I started this thread based on the fact that Lawrence was concerned about refereeing in SA.

Then it became a thread of south africans who threaten referees and how sad it is that he can't referee a match without fearing for his safety, and then it went back to SA didn't lose because of Lawrence, and it is still currently like throwing a red flag in front of a bull.

It gets me every time, this denial about what happended in that match and the fact that we must look at ourselves before we blame the referee.

And that is precisely what I did directly after the match, I looked at all the mistakes we made.

But you know how it goes, you get roped into a debate about this and that and before you know it you get stuck into the "other influences"

The sad thing is just when I thought I won't ever speak about it again, Matfield puts in hs book how Lawrence treated them, and immediately the frustration and anger comes back.

The fact is this is what happens when little men get authority and then you add a certain smirkyness to his demeanor, and all of a sudden he becomes the biggest numpty you know of.

does it make me feel better?

No not really, but it would be nice to meet him face to face with a truth serum of sorts and interrogate the poop out of him for a few hours.

Would like to know why he had such an attitude against the Boks on the day.

Jayzus... Victor already has a book out on it? That was quick.

Understand biltong, really do feel your frustration.

Will get better and soona s for ya, and as linebreaker said, keep your dog sweet!!!

Have a Castle/Windhoek/Sam Maguiel/insert your own beer on me!!!

OzT wrote:hey biltong, how are you?
Been watching this ref debate and have to admire the way you have fought your corner. Though I am disappointed you have said "to tell his men to take the law into their own hands".

Hi OzT, firstly i want to say you and line breaker has been very good about this whole matter, you never really gave me any reason to be angry at the Ozzies, I did get my tail up with Rob a few times though.

I am OK, It is just a case of expecting a semi final spot every time we play in a world cup, and the dissapointment of losing out and this ongoing denial by posters really irks the daylights out of me.

I do realise it isn't going to change, but that doesn't make the frustration any less.

As far as taking matters into our own hands, yes sadly it is wrong to say it, but the fact is if we did take laws into our own hands it would have firstly shown up the incompetence of Lawrence with more impact, they would have had to lable and perhaps ban a few boks for a number of weeks and then our weak administrators would have had to come to the defence of our boys and created a big stink about the whole debacle.

Please understand I do not begrudge australia their semi final spot, but robbed I feel we were.

Glad to see your all still complaining, crying, moaning and whinging that it was the refs fault you didn't win.

At least we England fans can hold our heads high and say proudly 'We lost because we were sh1t.'

Metal Tiger wrote:Glad to see your all still complaining, crying, moaning and whinging that it was the refs fault you didn't win.

At least we England fans can hold our heads high and say proudly 'We lost because we were sh1t.'

What's this "all" stuff... read a little closer Tiger. Congrats on giving those Swedes a massive thrashing though.

Good on you.

What about Cueto's non-try in the 07 final? To bag NZ and tell them to suck it up, then two weeks later bang on about a try that a wasn't legitimate and b wouldn't have made up the difference between the two sides anyway.

The ABs in 07, Boks in 11, Frogs in 95/11 and a fair few more were bloody hard done by from the ref, but weren't good enough to take that variable out of the equation. Simple. But what worries me is Lawrence's perceived attitude before the game in the eyes of Matfield etc. I like to think that they just had shockers so that is concerning.

At the time that Cueto "try" would've put England in the lead and dare I say it, the ascendency too. And it was a final, not a measly quarters!