@Bovidae said in Barnes autobiography:
WR has to take some responsibility themselves. If they weren't so protective of the refs/TMOs and publicly acknowledged when mistakes/errors were made, the fan reaction wouldn't be anywhere as bad. Instead they bury their heads in the sand and hope it all goes away.
Yes and no. What we are talking bout here is behavioural changes of the general population, not anything simple. Given the game is subjective, there will always be people that see Cane's card, Etzbeth getting away with a leading forearm and call foul / bias. You could also look SA getting the penalty to win their SF, see the similarities to the last scrum in the final and ask where was the NZ penalty? Thats just two examples where idiots can (controversially, legitimately) say officiating handed the world cup to South Africa.
I'm certainly one for thinking rules shouldn't be set for the lowest common denominator (Which they are), but you also can't keep your head in the sand when your changes are blatantly not working. We saw 3 yellow cards and a red in the world cup final for fucks sakes. How can it possibly be explained that the changes are having an effect, when 4 people got sent from the field in the biggest game of their lives for indiscretions? The only thing you can do is actually change the rules and/or the way it's refereed to try and reduce controversy.
The idea that we continue down this path & hope it all works out in the future is absurd. IT doesn't matter how many people condemn the people with death threats, they will still exist. They always have and they always will. That is the human population.
If you want to take death threats to officials away, you need to reduce the controversy.