How can you incur the wrath of former centrist MP Jean-Christophe Lagarde, astronaut Thomas Pesquet and former French XV star Sébastien Chabal in the same evening? Ben O’Keeffe has the “privilege” of having succeeded, in 80 minutes and a World Cup quarter-final lost extremely narrowly (28-29) by the Blues on Sunday evening at the Stade de France, to create this cocktail of resentment, to which we can undoubtedly add several million French people in front of their television.
The New Zealand referee of the match has joined the list of officials accused, by fans across a country, of having deliberately ruined their team’s chances with his decisions. There was the Welshman Derek Bevan in 1995 already against the Springboks, and the South African Craig Joubert in the final against the All Blacks in 2011. There will now be Ben O’Keeffe, an ophthalmologist in civilian life and able to express himself in French after having lived six months in France.
He will not need great linguistic knowledge to guess the anger in Antoine Dupont’s sentences during his post-match press conference. The scrum half and French captain very rarely raises his voice, but here he went straight when answering a French journalist’s question about refereeing.
“Not at the level of the stakes today”
“And what did you think of the arbitration? With an outside view? It’s hard to have that speech, because there is frustration, says the man who returned from injury right on time for the quarter-final. I can’t wait to see the images again. When there is an advance of 60 m, when you slow down a ruck, it seems obvious, it is still quite easy to whistle. I don’t want to be bitter and complain about the refereeing because he lost the match, but I’m not sure that the refereeing was up to the challenge today. »
Concretely, what do we blame the man who had already whistled 15 penalties against the French XV during the group match against Uruguay? Essentially, what Antoine Dupont points out: his complacency towards the Springboks in the rucks, these combat zones on the ground where you try to steal the ball from your opponent or at least slow down its exit.
“It wasn’t two or three rucks, it was all the rucks,” says hooker Peato Mauvaka. Sometimes they went in on the side, sometimes they didn’t come out of the tackle. We would have thought we would have several penalties for us. » “The ruck zones were not very clean,” regrets center three-quarter Jonathan Danty. Either we had difficulty releasing the ball and finding effective support, or there was the tackler who was hanging around a little in the area. »
To summarize, South Africa was not penalized enough, having been penalized six times, as many as the Blues, who also received more free kicks. The Springboks even found themselves at 14 for ten minutes with the yellow card of their second row Eben Etzebeth for a head-to-head clash with Uini Atonio. This same Etzebeth came to cut off with his massive arm a very good possibility of 14-0 for the French in the 7th minute. Action where the entire Stade de France shouted at the voluntary forward.
“Maybe when we lead 7-0 and Etzebeth cuts the ball’s trajectory, it’s a very big highlight. It could have been 14 points and it was 7-7 some time later,” says coach Fabien Galthié, when asked about the turning points of the match. In the heat of the moment, he did not want to charge Ben O’Keeffe.
“This kind of decision has happened in the past. I will not go to that field,” explains the boss of the Blues, while saying: “It’s not just one person who referees. There are assistants, video, they have time to see things and they have the right to participate in the arbitration.”
“The video was cut”
Need subtext? Head to the mixed zone where one of the very few tricolors to have responded to the media, Jonathan Danty, points out the mark on his face. “I experienced the same action as in Marseille on the left side (where the South African Pieter-Steph du Toit hit him with his head in a ruck before being sent off), but here it’s on the right . The video was cut at that moment,” snaps the former Stade Français player.
“I know it’s complicated at the end of a match to call a penalty, but it’s a World Cup quarter-final. If tomorrow I have to play a very high level match and I am no longer capable of it, I will raise my hand and I will not play,” he finishes, lashing out at the New Zealander at the whistle.
And again, no one addressed the case of the transformation of Thomas Ramos, countered by winger Cheslin Kolbe after a contentious sprint, or the forward arms of certain South Africans pointed out here and there by angry French Internet users. “Perhaps the staff will make requests for explanations,” says Jonathan Danty.
“The referee was very good”
In the opposite camp, the echo is radically different. “It’s sometimes a coin toss but I think the referee was very good. He communicated very well with both teams, says scrum-half Cobus Reinach. Afterwards, he remains a human being and no one leaves the field without having made mistakes. There was also pressure on him. I remain convinced that he did a very good job. »
“I don’t know what to say, we’re going to see the images again but we communicated well with him and his interventions were good,” adds captain Siya Kolisi. I have never discredited the referee and I never will. » “I think he managed the match well,” added his coach, Jacques Nienaber. We too could have had a penalty when the French player came to hinder Faf (de Klerk), when Handré (Pollard) could take the drop. »
