Joe Schmidt criticised for targeting referee after Jac Morgan clear-out

World Rugby has criticised Joe Schmidt for targeting the referees after the second British & Irish Lions Test in Melbourne, asking for more respect for officials.

The decisive game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground ended with a marginal refereeing decision, when the Lions back-row Jac Morgan cleared out Carlo Tizzano in a ruck before Hugo Keenan’s series-clinching try.

While the Lions thought the clear-out was perfectly legal, Schmidt and the Rugby Australia chief executive, Phil Waugh, raged about it, saying that not only did the referee, Andrea Piardi, get the decision wrong, and it should have been a penalty to the Wallabies as Morgan hit Tizzano above the line of the shoulders, but that referees are failing to protect players’ heads from injury. They claimed that this decision went directly against World Rugby’s stated player welfare targets.

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That has now brought a stern response from the governing body. Alan Gilpin, the World Rugby chief executive, used a Rugby World Cup 2027 ticketing launch event in Sydney to address the issue that has been dominating the reaction to the second Test.

World Rugby will not bring Schmidt to a disciplinary meeting, but are disappointed by his comments.

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“While, from a World Rugby perspective, we always say we do not publicly comment on match officials’ decisions, given the nature of the commentary surrounding last weekend, we just want to express our support for the match officials involved,” Gilpin said.

“There is no other position on the field that is under the scrutiny our match officials are under, and yet they do an incredible job under that pressure in a live environment. I think it is fair to say that when the refereeing groups review decisions, they review them with the coaches and across the game. We are always proud to support our officials in that review process and that is what we are doing now and in the coming days with our colleagues from Australia and the Lions.”

Harry Wilson, the Australia captain, discussed the incident in the final moments of the second Test in Melbourne MORGAN HANCOCK/GETTY IMAGES

World Rugby is conducting a review of that decision in the 79th minute of the match, but will not publish their findings publicly. The Times understands that the refereeing group are confident they made the right call. Waugh backed Schmidt on Sunday, and has since spoken to World Rugby about the incident privately.

“We’ve obviously got some work to do with Rugby Australia, again, to clarify to them the position, but it’s about respectful dialogue,” Gilpin added.

“I think it is disappointing when the reaction is one of, ‘This means player welfare isn’t taken seriously’, because we have worked really hard on that narrative. Everyone knows we are putting player welfare, in its broadest sense, at the top of the agenda. You can see that from what we are doing with the instrumented mouthguards, all the research, the science, the investigations.

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“The way the laws of the game have evolved in the last few years is all about, ‘How do we have this great physical contest, but make it as safe as possible?’. That part is challenging, in terms of the player welfare statements. With Joe, there’s a lot of emotion, understandably. The Wallabies had a chance to win an amazing Test match, so we understand the emotion involved in that.

“We see that in other sports, where no one can agree with VAR in football and line calls in other sports. So yes it’s the complexity of our game, but I think those match officials are making something like 800 decisions in a game, [under] pressure and at speed… and we all know that the breakdown is such a complex area to officiate.

“They’ve gone through their process. When the on-field decision is a try and that’s referred to the TMO, then there needs to be something really clear and obvious to change that, and they didn’t feel there was.”

Gilpin made the comments during a launch event for the Rugby World Cup, which begins in Australia in October 2027 MARK METCALFE – WORLD RUGBY/WORLD RUGBY VIA GETTY IMAGES

Gilpin said he was particularly concerned about Schmidt targeting the referees, as the South Africa coach, Rassie Erasmus, did the same thing during the 2021 Lions tour. He produced an hour-long video that was published online and criticised the decisions of the Australian referee Nic Berry, which led to the official receiving death threats. Wayne Barnes, the former English referee, successfully helped to push for criminal action to be taken against a fan who abused referees on social media after the 2023 World Cup final.

Matthew Carley, the television match official for that game between South Africa and New Zealand, had death threats sent to his children’s school, after the decision to send off the All Blacks captain Sam Cane during the 12-11 win for the Springboks.

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“You’ll all recall four years ago in the last Lions series in South Africa, when the match official in the first Test was very heavily criticised, which brought mental health challenges,” Gilpin said.

“Wayne Barnes has talked about it [after the 2023 World Cup], we’ve got match officials who, when they’re criticised publicly, having their families targeted outside the school gates, that’s not good, that’s not fair, and that’s not right, so we’ve got to support these guys.”

Brett Robinson, the World Rugby chairman and a former Wallaby, added: “We’re not always going to get it right, but there’s got to be an acceptance that we can do all we can, but even when we do there will be moments of grey.

“I want to protect the referees. Nic got absolutely hammered in South Africa, and he’s still incredibly scarred by the abuse and the trolling that happened to him.

“Everyone has an opinion and we’ve got internationals on both sides coming up with their own logic as to why the decision was given. It’s tough. It reinforces why we need to protect our match officials. The sport needs to respect that without these people turning up we don’t have a game. Publicly slaughtering people is not right.

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“I was the chair of the match official selection process, so I understand deeply what’s going on and the detail of analysis, between referees, coaches and the feedback process. I thought on the whole the referees did a really good job. People say there’s no accountability, but there absolutely is and I’ve seen referees miss out on being selected because of their performance.”

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