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RFU bin half-time Barnes salute due to recent Springboks fallout
By Liam Heagney
The recent Springboks' criticism of record-breaking referee Wayne Barnes had an unfortunate sequel at Twickenham on Saturday. Barnes’ milestone in becoming a Test centurion referee was due to be acknowledged at half-time during the England versus South Africa match.
However, this interval salute to his achievement was binned due to fears it would be greeted with boos from Springboks supporters attending the game. RFU president Nigel Gillingham had reported on page seven of the official match programme that Barnes’ milestone would be celebrated at the break in the final match of the 2022 Autumn Nations Series.
“We will be marking at half-time the wonderful achievement of Wayne Barnes, who on November 5 refereed his 100th Test international when he officiated at the Wales vs New Zealand Test, only the second referee to reach this remarkable milestone,” wrote the RFU official.
However, this idea of an on-pitch salute was called off before kickoff, TV commentator Nick Mullins tweeting: “Plans to mark Wayne Barnes’ record-breaking career as a referee at half-time have been shelved. With his family and children here, there are worries about how some in the crowd might react. This is why and where it must end.”
Barnes became the most-capped Test referee ever when he took charge of the November 12 France versus Springboks game in Marseille, but his performance drew the ire of South African fans with even death threats allegedly featuring in the torrent of abuse.
The situation surrounding South Africa’s narrow loss to the French had been inflamed by Rassie Erasmus, the Springboks' director of rugby, posting a series of sarcastic tweets on social media. Erasmus claimed that his comments weren’t criticisms of Barnes, but World Rugby thought otherwise and they banned the DoR for two matches - last weekend’s South African game in Genoa and this Saturday’s year-ending contest with England in London.
The suspension resulted in a meeting on Thursday between Erasmus, World Rugby CEO Alan Gilpin and the global rugby body's director of rugby, Phil Davies.
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Latest Comments
I had a look at the wiki article again, it's all terribly old data (not that I'd see reason for much change in the case of SA).
Number Of Clubs:
1526
Registered+Unregistered Players:
651146
Number of Referees:
3460
Pre-teen Male Players:
320842
Pre-teen Female Player:
4522
Teen Male Player:
199213
Teen Female Player:
4906
Senior Male Player:
113174
Senior Female Player:
8489
Total Male Player:
633229
Total Female Player:
17917
So looking for something new as were more concerned with adults specifically, so I had a look at their EOY Financial Review.
So 80k+ adult males (down from 113k), but I'm not really sure when youth are involved with SAn clubs, or if that data is for some reason not being referenced/included. 300k male students however (200k in old wiki data).
https://resources.world.rugby/worldrugby/document/2020/07/28/212ed9cf-cd61-4fa3-b9d4-9f0d5fb61116/P56-57-Participation-Map_v3.pdf has France at 250k registered but https://presse-europe1-fr.translate.goog/exclu-europe-1-le-top-10-des-sports-les-plus-pratiques-en-france-en-2022/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp has them back up at 300k registered.
The French number likely Students + Club, but everyone collects data different I reckon. In that WR pdf for instance a lot of the major nations have a heavily registered setup, were as a nation like England can penetrate into a lot more schools to run camps and include them in the reach of rugby. For instance the SARU release says only 29% of schools are reached by proper rugby programs, where as the 2million English number would be through a much much higer penetration I'd imagine. Which is thanks to schools having the ability to involve themselves in programs more than anything.
In any case, I don't think you need to be concerned with the numbers, whether they are 300 or 88k, there is obviously a big enough following for their pro scenes already to have enough quality players for a 10/12 team competition. They appear ibgger than France but I don't really by the lower English numbers going around.
Go to commentsOk I understand. Give them my number please Nick.
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