World Rugby have confirmed that referee Angus Gardner has been switched from his officiating role for this weekend’s clash between England and Argentina.
Gardner was supposed to be an assistant referee during the match, however, he has now been replaced by New Zealand based referee Ben O’Keefe.
Gardner has been switched to take over an assistant refereeing role for Japan’s game with Samoa.
Both Gardner and O’Keefe have been criticised for their performances during the pool stages so far with the former being heavily questioned for several decisions made during Japan’s surprise win over Ireland on Saturday with Irish head coach Joe Schmidt clarifying that World Rugby have admitted that there were three incorrect decisions during the game.
“We were penalised for offside four times and we’ve now got the feedback that three of those were incorrect calls. People were asking us about our discipline. It’s pretty hard to keep getting off the line and onto the front foot when you are getting those calls. Two of them were from an AR (assistant referee – Garces) who is going to be refereeing us on Thursday, so we know we’re going to have to be on our best behaviour. One thing I would say about this team is that they try to go out and deliver and, generally speaking, it’s unusual for us to have a higher penalty count than our opponents. So it’s frustrating. I thought Wayne [Barnes] did a super job (in Ireland v Scotland),” he said.
Gardner also came under scrutiny for his performance during the Pumas opening round loss to France, while O’Keefe was the referee at the centre of the controversy surrounding Wallabies star Reece Hodges’ high tackle against Fiji.
Both referee’s will need to put in better performances with World Rugby also citing how poor the officiating was during round one of the tournament and it seems they will need to step up once more as people would prefer to talk about the high-quality rugby and not the referee’s bad decision making.
