Alan Jones blasts ‘pipsqueak from Paris’ ref whose shocking decision robbed Wallabies of a Bledisloe win – and it’s just a symptom of the bigger problem that will soon leave …

Former Wallabies coach Alan Jones has labelled referee Mathieu Raynal a ‘little pip-squeak from Paris’ after the Frenchman handed the All Blacks a controversial last-minute 37-34 victory over Australia on Thursday night.

While conceding that Raynal was within his rights to penalise Australia’s Bernard Foley for time-wasting as the clock ticked down to fulltime, Jones was adamant that referees are ‘ruining the game’.

‘Is the referee buggering up the game?’ he asked. ‘Undeniably, yes.’

Of course, it doesn’t take an ex-Wallaby coach, or even an ex-Wallaby like David Campese who voiced a similar opinion to Daily Mail Australia recently, to point out that rugby referees are having a detrimental effect on the game.

French referee Mathieu Raynal (centre) made one of the worst decisions in the Wallabies’ long history, costing the team a Bledisloe win after their heroic comeback against the All Blacks

Furious ex-Wallabies coach Alan Jones says rugby referees have to enforce ‘so much rubbish in the law book’ – and it’s left the sport far behind free-flowing codes 

Anyone who has paid money for a seat in a stadium or sat down in front of their television set and been inflicted with the infuriating, stop-start penalty-fest that this season’s Test matches have dished up, knows it only too well.

A low point was the first Test between the Wallabies and Argentina in Mendoza during which referee Mike Adamson awarded a staggering 30 penalties, but other matches weren’t far behind.

The Australia-England Test at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium was marred by a shocking decision from Irish referee Andrew Brace that saw the Wallabies reduced to 14 men when winger Izaia Perese was sin-binned early in the first half.

With England on the attack Perese attempted what appeared to be an obvious attempt to intercept. Brace ruled it a ‘clear, deliberate knock-on’ and sent him to the bin for 10 minutes. England scored soon afterwards and eventually won 25-17.

In the TV commentary box former All Black Andrew Mehrtens was incredulous.

‘There is no motion to knock that ball,’ he said. ‘He’s trying to drag it in.

‘This is the absurdity we’re seeing at the moment where there is just no common sense applied to some of the rulings.’

It was a refrain heard often from frustrated spectators as the Test season rolled on.

Jordie Barrett’s match-sealing try would never have happened if it wasn’t for the sort of nitpicking, over-the-top decision that’s become all too common in the ‘running game’

Raynal gives Darcy Swain a yellow card during the Bledisloe Cup clash on Thursday night. The Wallaby was previously the victim of a farcical yellow against England 

There was the farcical sin-binning of South African halfback Faf de Klerk for slapping the face of his Wallaby opposite number Nic White while trying to dislodge the ball (aided by a blatant dive by White), the send-off of Wallaby Darcy Swain for a half-hearted retaliatory headbutt after having his hair pulled by England’s Jonny Hill, and the send-off and suspension of All Black prop Angus Ta’avao following an obvious accidental head clash with Ireland’s Garry Ringrose, among others.

But the granddaddy of them all has to be the decision by Raynal which robbed Australia of the chance to win the Bledisloe Cup for the first time since 2002.

If any of the mind-blowing actions by referees in recent times is deemed monumental enough to force the lawmakers in Dublin to rethink the amount of power given to the people with the whistle, this should be it.

No consultation, no visible time clock counting down the seconds as Foley prepared to kick, and no consideration whatsoever for the importance of the situation, the players’ levels of exhaustion or the feelings of the paying customers.

Just a man with a whistle and a law book wanting to be the star of the show.

Aussie players – pictured reacting straight after the loss – are supposed to be the stars of the show, but it’s the match officials who take centre stage thanks to the bloated rule book 

As Alan Jones put it: ‘I have little sympathy for someone running down the clock, but by the same token you would hope that the referee would have some feeling for the game.

‘This isn’t the first time a team has been penalised for time-wasting but it’s the first time it has happened at such a crucial time in such an important game.’

Jones, who coached the Wallabies on the 1984 Grand Slam-winning tour of Britain and Ireland and to Bledisloe Cup success in New Zealand in 1986, said the time-wasting debacle was symptomatic of the greater malaise that is destroying international rugby union.

‘The referees have an inordinate amount of control over the game,’ he said.

That was certainly the case at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium on Thursday night, with Raynal awarding five penalties in the first five minutes and 24 in total, plus four sin-bins and, of course, the contentious last-minute decision to change a penalty to Australia into an All Blacks scrum feed which led to a try.

‘The referee is intent on blowing the whistle but you can’t argue with them because there is so much rubbish in the law book,’ Jones said.

‘That’s why AFL is so popular. The umpires don’t have to do anything. There’s no rules in Aussie Rules. It’s non-stop action.

‘In rugby the referees are ruining the game. You wire them up for sound and give them power and they want to be the stars. That’s why you only get 32 minutes of actual play.

Here’s what the fans want to see: running rugby. But they’re getting stoppage after stoppage – and unless that changes, the game is in deep trouble (Wallaby Pete Samu pictured with ball)

‘Why anyone thought it was a good idea to wire them up is beyond me. You wire someone up and they’ll talk. They think that the whole world wants to hear what they’ve got to say when in actual fact no-one cares, they just want to watch some football.

‘The scrums are the biggest problem. Why is a referee telling international forwards how to pack a scrum? What would he know?

‘These are the best players in the world and you’ve got this little pipsqueak from Paris telling them how to scrummage. It’s ridiculous.’

Surprise, surprise – another yellow card, another stoppage in play. Jones says union can’t compete with the nearly non-stop action of the AFL unless it returns to its free-flowing roots 

But, as more ex-players and supporters become increasingly frustrated with the way rugby is going, it’s not unexpected.

Last week Wallaby great David Campese told Daily Mail Australia the current state of the game as ‘a joke’ – and there are plenty around the world who agree.

In his preview of Thursday night’s Test, New Zealand journalist Hamish Bidwell posed the question: Who’ll be the star of the show at Marvel Stadium?

‘Sadly, as we’ve become increasingly accustomed,’ he wrote, ‘it might well be referee Mathieu Raynal.’

Unfortunately, he was right.

As Brisbane media personality and avowed rugby league man Ben Dobbin tweeted after the Perese sin-binning at Suncorp Stadium: ‘What an absolute disgrace. Rugby is dead if this dreadful officiating keeps up.’

Maybe not quite yet, but it will be on life support soon.