Cape Town — Many Springbok fans will feel that New Zealand referee Paul Williams “missed a good game” last week, considering the number of Wallaby indiscretions he either didn’t see or blatantly ignored at the Adelaide Oval.
The two major talking points were the tackle by Marika Koroibete on Makazole Mapimpi, and the ‘slap’ by Faf de Klerk on Nic White.
But there were so many others that Williams could have referred upstairs to the TMO, such as De Klerk’s supposed high tackle on Fraser McReight close to the tryline, and Folau Fainga’a deliberately collapsing a Bok maul that should have resulted in a yellow card.
However, there is good news for the Bok supporters for Saturday’s showdown at the Allianz Stadium in Sydney. The man with the whistle in the middle will be another Kiwi, Ben O’Keeffe, but don’t despair: he will go to the TMO when necessary.
In fact, recalling his last Bok Test, he went a bit overboard with the referrals. The 33-year-old from Blenheim is actually a medical doctor too, and guess what: he is a specialist in ophthalmology (in other words, an eye doctor)! No wonder O’Keeffe is such an eagle-eyed official ...
The Test in question was last year’s second encounter between the Boks and the British & Irish Lions at Cape Town Stadium. The spotlight was well and truly on O’Keeffe, as it followed THAT video from Rassie Erasmus about Australian Nic Berry’s performance in the first Test.
In addition, South African TMO Marius Jonker was caught between a rock and a hard place as he was reluctant to rule anything in the Boks’ favour, which was a major contributor to the first Test defeat.
That saw O’Keeffe taking it upon himself to make most of the decisions, even when he referred incidents to Jonker.
So, if White wants to go down for another Oscar-worthy performance after a slap, O’Keeffe is not likely to fall for it and dish out a yellow card.
And if Koroibete tries his no-arms tackle on Mapimpi again, be assured that O’Keeffe will at least take the matter to the TMO for further consideration.
He will also give Bok captain Siya Kolisi more of a hearing than Williams or Berry did previously, as he was careful to give the No 6 an opportunity to get his point across in that second Lions Test.
Another aspect that O’Keeffe needs to police properly will be the Wallabies’ maul defence, scrum angles, offside lines and the blocking of those Boks who chase the box-kicks.
But while Williams didn’t have his finest display at the Adelaide Oval, the Boks only had themselves to blame, as they failed to finish off a number of try-scoring opportunities.
At least Nienaber acknowledged that afterwards, and the rest of the Bok management would have spent all week on the training pitch trying to find solutions to the finishing.
The coach himself has also responded by picking a new-look team, and will be eager to see whether new halfbacks Jaden Hendrikse and Damian Willemse can bring much-needed direction to the Bok attack.
IOL Sport