#RUGBY FEMALE STREAKER PLUS#

Though he was, by his own admission, ‘crap’. But he did have rugby, and he started playing when he was six. Barnes was 13 before he first visited London, and 20 before he flew in a plane.

He went to the local comprehensive from which his older brother was expelled for throwing a desk at the deputy headmaster. His father was a lorry driver, his mother worked in a snooker club, and his parents separated when he was still young. The abuse was offset by the many messages of support that he received from players and coaches around the globe, but it was a sad way for a man who had risen from the humblest of backgrounds to become the world’s top referee to bow out.īarnes was raised on a council estate in Bream, an old mining village in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. ‘But when people take it to the next level of making threats of violence against your wife and kids, it’s like, how can you even think that’s right?’

‘I guess as a referee you get used to it, but you shouldn’t have to get used to it,’ Barnes says. World Rugby, the sport’s governing body, has employed a data science company to try and trace the senders. Won’t miss you, or the death threats.’īarnes reported the abuse to the police. ‘What a vile atmosphere at the Stade de France. Polly posted a private message on Instagram which was leaked to the press. We know where your kids are.’ There were threats of sexual violence. The messages, which ran into double figures, declared: ‘We will burn your house down. ‘There were threats of violence, threats against the kids, threats against Polly, against me,’ Barnes says.

Most independent commentators thought he had a good match, and World Rugby has described his team’s performance as ‘outstanding’.īut the social media abuse began almost immediately. He adds that Cane, Smith and the other New Zealand players thanked him very graciously after the game and made no complaints. He says his assistant referees and managers have since reviewed and endorsed them. The Springboks won by a solitary point, 12-11.īarnes defends all those decisions, which were made with the help of the television match official (TMO). He sin-binned three other players including Siya Kolisi, the South African captain, and disallowed a try by New Zealand’s Aaron Smith for a knock-on a few moves earlier. In the event he red-carded Sam Cane, the All Blacks captain, who became the first player ever to be sent off in a final. It should by rights have crowned a glorious refereeing career. The match was Barnes’s last before his retirement at the age of 44. ‘It’s a good question,’ Barnes laughs when I put it to him, and it is a particularly pertinent one because not long before our interview he had refereed rugby’s ultimate showpiece, the World Cup final between South Africa and New Zealand in Paris, and suffered the consequences. There is no glory to be had: for a rugby referee, the definition of ‘success’ is to finish the match unnoticed.

#RUGBY FEMALE STREAKER PLUS#

Why would anyone want to take charge of what he himself describes, in a new autobiography entitled Throwing the Book, as ‘organised mayhem’, a fast-moving game of fiendishly complex rules, knowing that one wrong call could not only wreck the entire match but incur the wrath – or worse – of 80,000 fired-up fans in the seething cauldron of that stadium plus millions more watching live on television There is one question above all that I wish to explore with him, which is this: why would any sane person want to be a top-flight rugby referee? Wayne Barnes meets me in the plush, muffled eighth-floor offices of the top City law firm where he works as a criminal barrister: offices which offer the starkest possible contrast to the muddy pitches in huge stadia packed with roaring rugby fans where he has spent so many of his Saturdays over the past two decades.Īnd today his tall, slim frame is clothed not in his customary referee’s kit, but in a tailored dark blue suit and crisp white shirt with cufflinks.

Rugby female streaker