Rugby

Plaudits and brickbats just part of the game for Wayne Barnes

Accomplished English referee looking forward to Japan and his fourth World Cup

Wayne Barnes: “What I think are going to be the really crucial areas of the World Cup is ensuring players have space and players have quick ball.” Photograph: Gary Carr/Inpho

Johnny Watterson's face
Johnny Watterson
Sat Sep 7 2019 - 01:07

Tommy has the floor.

“He’s an Englishman that maybe doesn’t have the best reputation with some of the media here,” says today’s stand-in referee Bowe. A hundred thousand welcomes to Ireland Wayne Barnes.

The QC and World Cup referee smiles and rolls with Bowe’s gentle digs at the Emirates lunch in Dublin. He will run the touchline at the Aviva today. He will referee Ireland’s first match in Japan against Scotland. Barnes is all over Irish rugby.

He is, to Bowe’s astonishment, one of the high-profile referees who also holds down a demanding job. A Law graduate, Barnes live in Twickenham – yes, he walks to the ground.

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For a World Cup match in 2015, he met all the match officials in his house, had a bite to eat around the kitchen table, set out a few ideas for the match and walked through the fans to the stadium.

“At the quarter-final and semi-final of the World Cup, all of the team I was working with met at mine for a bit of lunch then we put our bags on our shoulders and walked across the bridge with all the fans through the fan zone,” he says.

“How do you get all that time off,” asks the former Irish winger.

“I’m self employed. I have a very understanding chambers,” he says.

“We specialise in bribery and corruption.”

The funny part? There’s no boom, boom. It’s true.

“It’s a nice release. For players they try to make sure they have an exit strategy. Same for referees. So a lot of us have that extracurricular thing.”

Bowe tells the story of Ireland’s Grand Slam win in Cardiff in 2009. Barnes with the whistle blows for Paddy Wallace’s hands on the ball in a ruck.

“He’s 40 tomorrow I’m going to his party,” Bowe drops in. The penalty decision by Barnes lines up the Welsh outhalf, Stephen Jones for a dying seconds kick to deny Ireland their first Grand Slam since 1948.

Bowe is too polite to say Barnesy WTF. But the inference is W is TF Barnesy. The emotion was WTF. Jones’s kick fell short. Geordan Murphy caught the ball ran over the corner and smashed it into the crowd. History. Barnesy, WTF Barnesy?

"After a game I did between New Zealand and France I was voted the third most hated man in New Zealand," he says. That was the 2007 Rugby World Cup, when France beat the red hot All Blacks 20-18. A second-half sin-binning for Luke McAlister during which Thierry Dusautoir scored a try helped usher France into the semi-final. But it was mistake, a forward pass he failed to see, that earned Barnes the hate accolade.

Bloody hot

“I came in third behind Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden,” he says, gallows humour kicking in.

This is probably his last World Cup although he says the decision has not been made. But his life is changing. His daughter begins school on September 11th. He is then out the door and on a plane to Japan for two months.

He knows what it will be like there for players and referees. He has been to Japan twice before in 2009 and 2013 when he officiated in Pacific Nations matches.

“The pitches are going to be fast,” he says. “It is going to be bloody hot.”

From an official pint of view, the squadron of officials already know what particulars they will be looking for and it is not high tackles.

“What I think are going to be the really crucial areas of the World Cup is ensuring players have space and players have quick ball,” he says.

“My job is to make sure the offside lines are policed well, also the breakdown, that the ball is available for a team to play attractive, open rugby if they want to. We want to make sure that teams have the opportunity to play.”

There could be a thesis written about all the Irish games Barnes has refereed. Johnny Sexton once said Ireland had to be cautious with Barnes in charge because of the penalty count, that they had to work him out better. Today, though, he is the most reasonable and charming man in the room. The affable Englishman is pulling the right levers, ringing the right bells, saying the right things.

“I’ll never forget November 2018,” he says. “New Zealand in Aviva Stadium. That’s why we do all the hard work, make the sacrifices.”

Ah now. We’re filling up over here.

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