French referees used to have a reputation for being homers, one reason away victories used to be so rare in the Top 14, but there are few officials New Zealand supporters dread seeing more than Romain Poite, who will take charge of the third and decisive Test against the British & Irish Lions, as he did in Australia in 2013.
Poite plays it straight and is not distracted by location or reputation, along with his compatriot Jérôme Garcès, who controlled the second Test in Wellington and had no compunction in sending off Sonny Bill Williams for a reckless, dangerous tackle despite the urging of a television match official to have a rethink.
Three years ago, Poite sent the New Zealand captain, Richie McCaw, to the sin-bin after 12 minutes against Australia at Eden Park, only the third yellow card the flanker had received in what was his 128th Test appearance. In 2010, he gave the Munster captain, Paul O’Connell, 10 minutes off for handling in a ruck during a tight, tense European Cup tie with Northampton at Thomond Park.
The Munster crowd roared its disapproval but Poite is deaf to boos. The deciding Test between Australia and the Lions in Sydney in 2013 was only a few moves old when he awarded the tourists a penalty at a scrum and 24 minutes had elapsed when he sent the home prop Ben Alexander to the sin-bin for his various attempts outside the rule book to counter Alex Corbisiero.
Poite has developed a reputation for rewarding the dominant scrum but that is an over-simplification of his approach. In the second Test in Australia, the South African referee Craig Joubert had allowed Australia to engage early, putting the Lions on the back foot, but Poite applied the law.
It meant no early engagement while props had to remain upright and square, whether they were part of the dominant scrum or in retreat. When England played Australia in the 2015 World Cup at Twickenham, a match they had to win to remain in the tournament they were hosting, the advantage they were expected to have at the scrum because Poite was in charge never happened because he took exception to the technique of their props, even when they were going forward.
He did not pre-judge Australia, any more than he had in 2013; he merely refereed what he saw. If he will not have a higher tolerance threshold for the All Blacks on Saturday, the same will apply to the Lions. He is the one official on this tour who has given the offside line in midfield more than cursory scrutiny, warning both teams during the Lions’ match against the Hurricanes before penalising the home team.
Poite and Garcès have helped make France pre-eminent in the refereeing world. There have been, including Saturday, 88 Tests involving tier-one nations in the past 13 months: French officials have been in charge of 24, more than 25% of them, as many as New Zealand, Australia and Ireland combined.
The Williams sending-off showed why. New Zealand were unhappy Mako Vunipola received only a yellow card for a challenge off the ball on Beauden Barrett but contact was not made with the fly-half’s head. They did have a grievance with Sean O’Brien escaping sanction for a swinging arm challenge on Waisake Naholo considering what happened to Dylan Hartley last season when he made similar contact with O’Brien during the European Cup tie between Northampton and Leinster at Franklin’s Gardens, but similar decisions have gone the way of the All Blacks in recent years.
Poite will be no more afraid to reach for his pocket than Garcès. He has sent 23 players to the sin-bin in his past 22 Tests and the Hurricanes match, and in a series when players other than the captains have talked incessantly, he will not tolerate running commentaries. Last year, he sent off the Oyonnax full-back Silvère Tian for backchat, having just shown him a yellow card for a ruck offence, and had to be escorted from the field at the end of the match as Tian lay in wait in the tunnel.
The team who get on the right side of Poite will be the one that best observes the rules of the game. “I am a referee, not a coach,” he told Hartley during the Six Nations when the England captain complained about Italy’s tactics at the breakdown. The Azzurri had not broken the letter of the law, the lesson for Saturday.
