Former international referee slams Lions tour

Former world referee chiefs Alain Rolland has given a scathing account of the latest British & Irish Lions series in South Africa after the Springboks defeated their rivals 2-1. 

Writing in his column for dalymail.co.uk, Rolland pulled no punches in his assessment of the tour and its contribution to rugby in general. 

"This whole series - on and off the field - has been a poor advertisement for the game of rugby. Something that promised so much, delivered so little. Across the three games, it was hard to watch at times," he writes. 

"It was not enjoyable to watch. If you were put on this planet having never seen rugby before and watched this series, you would not be rushing out to play the game. Our game deserves more. 

"It doesn’t mean you want to see 50 tries over the series but we should at least hope for seeing the ball in play, players breaking the lines, putting good defences under pressure. 

"The TMO review for (Cheslin) Kolbe’s try should have taken no more than a couple of replays. There was no footage that showed clear evidence of a knock-on needed to overturn the on-field decision. 

"It comes down to the fact it’s a Lions series and this was the decider. It was such a huge decision, they wanted to make sure they got it right. 

"However, the more you look at it, the more TMO Marius Jonker asked referee Mathieu Raynal if he was sure, the more doubts creep in, the more confusion grows. You wonder if you’ve missed something. 

"I guarantee that many of the decisions we have seen over the last three Tests would have been made an awful lot quicker if it was a normal game. It wasn’t pretty."