IRB slams Honiss
31 Jul 2007
The IRB has responded angrily to Paul Honiss’s comments that players should talk more to referees and question decisions.
The New Zealand referee, who is on the IRB’s 12-man referee panel for the World Cup, has been told by the world governing body that his comments were “against IRB policy”.
“The message from the IRB has not changed,” said IRB CEO Mike Miller. “Back-chat and arguing with a match official will not be tolerated, nor will any attempt to influence a referee or slow down the match through questioning the referee. Players who overstep the mark will be penalised accordingly and the IRB has reiterated this policy to the referee panel.â€
“Paul Honiss’s comments encouraging players to verbally engage the referee more were out of line. He has been reprimanded by the IRB referee manager [fellow Kiwi Paddy O'Brien] and he has been told that such actions will not be tolerated moving forward. He has been reminded about his responsibilities as a Test match referee and he has accepted that his actions were contrary to IRB policy.”
O’Brien added; “The referee’s decision is final on the field of play. Nowhere in the game’s laws does it say that players can question the referee or try to influence his decision making. We allow captains to talk to the referee but only at appropriate moments and it is not a given right.â€
39 Comments
31 Jul 2007, 13:34 pm
Hahahaha now what Honiss?
31 Jul 2007, 13:34 pm
Honiss should be removed from the panel.
IRB are just spineless.
31 Jul 2007, 13:43 pm
Honis is a wanker, as is about half of the refs on that panel. It is about time the IRB cleans House and appoints some competent people as test refs.
In this professional era it cannot be that difficult to find 12 good refs, can it?
31 Jul 2007, 13:45 pm
Reprimanded by Paddy?? My my no wonder he is still around. Your time will come Paul ****!
31 Jul 2007, 13:46 pm
I think he was clever.
he obviously did not really want the kiwis to bug the refs.
what he wanted was for the world to take note of how teams like oz are doing it, without actually pointing fingers at them
think about it, now that he has said that the emphasis has been largely placed on we will not tolerate it, but the kiwis rarely do it, the big loser here is of course….. AUSTRALIA !!!
31 Jul 2007, 13:47 pm
Honiss stinks!
31 Jul 2007, 13:51 pm
He may be PoePaul Honis, but he is still a better ref that most of the AA refs in SA.
31 Jul 2007, 13:52 pm
Jake White,
I agree with you on that. Very cunning.
I guess Oz will have to make Gregan captain again now, otherwise we won’t hear a peep from Gregan during the world cup. Oh joy of joys!
31 Jul 2007, 13:58 pm
Kerneels,
It would appear that it is. If you listen to the complaints though, refereeing standards have fallen not just at international level, but at provincial level too.
Rugby lost a core of experience a little while ago when O’Brien, Watson, McHugh and Morrison retired. It takes time and experience for refs to mature.
All refs have their positives and negatives. Sometimes you may want a pedantic ref to slow the game down and make it scrappy, especially if you are playing a team like the ABs or Wallabies who thrive on continuity.
Sometimes you may want a ref who plays long advantages or tries to let play continue, especially if you are up against a team who prefers a set piece battle and structure, like the Boks and England.
Just hope your team have drawn the refs that suit the way your team wants to play.
31 Jul 2007, 14:07 pm
Stodders,
You have it the wrong way around …. this means that no one is allowed to talk to Gregan
31 Jul 2007, 14:09 pm
9 Stodders,
Agree … big difference between O’Brian and New Zealand refs of today.
I am a bit surprised that Paddy keeps up his current position considering he retired due to poor health
31 Jul 2007, 14:13 pm
chch,
He probably doesn’t have to do too much at IRB HQ in Dublin. It seems more like a boys club than an association with responsibility for looking after a global sport.
I imagine he and Syd Millar head down to the pub for a few cold guinnesses and some reminiscing half the time, if the speed of implementing ideas and change by the IRB over the last few years is anything to go by.
31 Jul 2007, 14:14 pm
Get rid of him finish and kla
31 Jul 2007, 14:15 pm
We don’t talk to refs, we’ve got Piet van Zyl
31 Jul 2007, 14:28 pm
#7 – Chuck Norris -
Honiss is not better than Jonathan Kaplan and one or two other SA refs, who are top notch – nowhere near; and he is not a good ref because he is not objective nor is he consistent (unless you argue that he is consistently unfair).
31 Jul 2007, 14:34 pm
F U Honissssssssssssssss!!!!!
31 Jul 2007, 14:37 pm
Honnis is an idiot. He has stuff al brains and should be allowed to come within 100 meters of a whistle.
The IRB says that talking to the ref will not be tolerated, but they won’t enforce it.
The law came in before the S14 that only the captain may talk to the ref and only when there is a break for an injury.
Was this applied in the S14? Not at all.
Are they going to do it in the WC? I don’t think so. They are too bloody spineless.
31 Jul 2007, 14:39 pm
JB Cowper,
If you listen to the Wallabies, Kaplan is biased against them. I rate Kaplan, but has as bad a record refereeing the Wallabies as Honiss does reffing the Boks.
As for the other SA refs, Jonker and Joubert are good refs and will become very good as they gain more experience and mature. They are not yet top notch.
Jonker’s inexperience was played upon superbly by Gregan in the Melbourne test against the ABs. It was like watching Obi Wan performing Jedi mind tricks on a storm trooper
I would say that the NH has most of the top refs right now, but even they are not as consistent as they are made out to be. Alain Rolland, Alan Lewis, Tony Spreadbury (pushing it maybe), Joel Jutge along with Kaplan form the core of the IRB’s referee pool. Each has a different style to the next ranging from end of the pednatic scale to the other.
31 Jul 2007, 14:53 pm
“Honiss should be removed from the panel.”
agreed.
3 “Honis is a wanker”
agreed.
6 “Honiss stinks!”
agreed.
13 “Get rid of him finish and finish and kla”
agreed.
15 “Honiss is not better than Jonathan Kaplan”
agreed.
16 “#@!***%”
agreed.
17 “Honnis is an idiot” agreed.
agreed.
18. “I would say that the NH has most of the top refs right now”
agreed.
31 Jul 2007, 15:01 pm
# 19 agreed
honiss in my books fall in with dickenson,linston and willie rrrr..oos, they must be the wort of the poo-heap
31 Jul 2007, 15:25 pm
So the IRB decided that Honiss must be the scapegoat… OK he thoroughly deserves a few shots!
But, will it change the fact that there are a multitude of different interpretations among referees?
No it will not!
This just emphasizes the problem again. He just admitted that there is a problem. If one look at the context in which Honiss said that players should get involved he did not do much wrong.
The biggest embarrassment for the IRB was that once again the world could see that the game of Rugby has various rules interpretations and they are to blame and not in control.
Honiss… It works for the political mind games within the IRB and will save them some face on the streets for now. But, it did not help the game of Rugby one bit going forward in resolving the referee crises!
I agree I don’t like the chirping of players and I firmly believe that the referee must have the authority on the field. But the problem here is the various boundaries in the rulebook!
The best thing to get momentum in sorting this problem is to get the debate between players, coaches and referees going. Structured, specific and if the teams and the referees did not do there homework they must be penalized.
The coaching staff and one or two senior players should be allowed to debate referee decisions with the referee under the supervision of a match mediator a day or so after the match!
It can even be done on a conference call basis but not just these post match reports.
The point is… we need to lift the game from the ground up by all parties concerned. I say all parties because in the last decade, in my opinion, most of the rule changes were initialed by non other than Australia.
This is great, but in the end it had much more to do to suit the Aussies style of play and the ambitions of TV bosses than any thing else. We don’t need this polarity amongst the people giving direction to the game.
The same applies to the IRB referee panel. The way they are going to take the game forward should and must include the players’ coaches and us. They must strive for unity and get this I am unaccountability referees we have, with regard to the concerns of the players, on the carpet.
If referees are forced to do post match conferences with teams it will not just trim down the various rule interpretations but also build a generation of credible referees and educate the players too!
Good luck Paddy!
31 Jul 2007, 16:00 pm
Well put 4teen. The rules of the game are now so complex and open to interpretation that it has become almost impossible to find any consistency in the application of the laws. No doubt that anyone with an un-bias eye would be able to find inconsistencies going either way in any game if they tried hard enough.
31 Jul 2007, 16:13 pm
instead of making the rules of the game so complicated, the IRB maybe should explain how they select their referees.
btw honiss isn’t even the best ref in NZ – Steve Walsh is.
31 Jul 2007, 16:22 pm
‘Steve Walsh the best ref in NZ’ ????
I suppose if being a vain-glorious, home-advantage, egotistical showpony qualifies you as ‘the best’ then so be it. Im still figuring out how/why he was allowed to continue whistling after embarrassing the NZers far’n'wide on the 2005 Lions tour.
31 Jul 2007, 16:31 pm
At the end of the day the Best Ref is the one that blows the least amount of penalties against our team and the most against the oposition.
We in SA say that Richie McCaw is allowed to get away with murder at ruck time. A number of Kiwi’s will tell you that the SA backlines are offside more often then they are onside… And so the story goes. The game has become too complicated and teams push the laws to the limits these days.
31 Jul 2007, 16:50 pm
its fairly obvious when a ref is out of his depth tho. Jonker had far too little experience to control the 1st Bledisloe match, that was obvious. But then Owen came in for the return leg and made an even bigger mess of the scrums. Refs have an almost impossible task to satisfy a public who have the benefit of endless slow-mo replays.
But its obvious that if linesmen were given the power to control the offside-line, then there would be more space available to backlines to work in ever-decreasing space. I cant ever see this as being a negative for spectators and players alike. I understand this has been trialled for the new ‘Stellenbosch Rules’. A great idea, surely. That is, unless, you have a backline that lives offside (lets look forward to seeing correlating intercept statistics).
31 Jul 2007, 16:56 pm
I agree with Honnis to the point where HIS decisions should be questioned and players should be encouraged to talk to him and question his calls because he is C%£CK!
31 Jul 2007, 18:06 pm
In my opinion there’s a very simple way to improve referees’ performance.
Let’s say for argument’s sake a referee earns R10,000 per game (irrespective of how well he performs).
Give him a performance-based match fee instead.
Up his maximum possible pay to say R15000. After each game he gets 5 ratings out of 10 – 2 coaches, 2 captains and TMO or some other IRB official. Take the average of the 5 ratings, multiply by R15000 and that’s what he gets paid. If he gets 8/10 from all 5 he gets paid R12000, but if he gets 4/10, he only gets R6000.
Dead simple – do your job well and you earn more money, but do your job badly and you get penalized.
31 Jul 2007, 21:22 pm
The infamous incident in Dublin should have been enough to earn him a reprimand if not a suspension. That he had the nerve to admit that his impartiality is far from that, should have ended his career.
It’s like a doctor committing malpractice and then saying that it is necessary at times.
31 Jul 2007, 21:46 pm
Paul Honnis shouldn’t be a ref, he should go and coach ballet.
31 Jul 2007, 23:38 pm
The guy that reffed the Province-Cheetahs game was good, ws it Kaplan? I can’t remember.
31 Jul 2007, 23:41 pm
Yeah was Kaplan
1 Aug 2007, 00:38 am
Honiss is a very good ref. And the proper, professional IRB people who rate refs officially agree with me.
The Yarpies who bag him are just a bunch of whingers and crybabies.
1 Aug 2007, 01:07 am
I have “cut and pasted” the whole thread, and sent it off to my very good friend Paul Honiss.
If he wasn’t biased against SA before today, he certainly will be next time he reads his e-mail.
1 Aug 2007, 02:33 am
tackler,
our whinging is merely, like ritchie McCaw, an optical illusion.
The AB’s subjected to decent refs would be ranked below Italy. The reason you have not won a RWC since 1987 is because occassionally the refs conscience gets the better of them.
1 Aug 2007, 02:57 am
the fact that honiss is regarded as nz top ref is an insult to all those who ref competently around the globe. no one likes honiss. he is shocking.
1 Aug 2007, 03:01 am
cane, can you tell your very good friend paul honiss that we (rugby players and supporters around the world including nz) think he is a **** ref.
you can quote me
i think bryce lawrence is really good. deaker is getting good now. walsh has been putting in better performances although i still think he wants too much tv time.
im really relived the likes of paddy and colin hawk have retired, they were literally blind.
of course i have similar opinions about the refs from SA, so dont go shouting the bias thing.
1 Aug 2007, 05:42 am
#33 For a nation that still believes in Suzie may I say it is extraordinarily rich for you to even suggest South Africans are whingers and crybabies.
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