Brad Thorn: The way rugby is being officiated is ‘hurting’ the game

Former Leinster lock and current Queensland Reds coach Brad Thorn has lamented how modern rugby is being officiated by referees following his side's 39-16 loss to the Blues on Friday.

The Reds lost winger Jordan Petaia and prop Taniela Tupou to back-to-back yellow cards in the first-half for dangerous tackling and Thorn said that the hardline officiating (following high profile incidents in both the Australian and New Zealand summer test series) is hurting the game.

"The game is in an interesting place isn't it," Thorn said (via Stuff.co.nz) "Everyone is talking about that at the moment, both sides of the Tasman. It's interesting. "Probably the No 1 thing, like for a lot of fans, coaches and players everywhere, it's hurting the game. The game is getting hurt. "If that's what rugby is where you slow things down .... a lifting tackle where he didn't drive him into the ground. And Taniela came up, his hands from what I saw were in front of him, and he went in hard and low... if you want to penalise, but then yellow card as well? "There's a lot of things in rugby that are interesting. Even the knock-down rules, it's often a yellow card. In league you just get on with it. Bad pass, pack a scrum, get on with it. "It's an interesting place that the game is in. If that's where we want to go ... for me it's hard. I was a physical player, I enjoyed hitting rucks hard, and played my league in the '90s. "As a 12-year-old I remember my coach pulling me aside at halftime, 'when you pick a guy up drive him into the dirt'. I'm not saying we do that, but for me it's an interesting place. Referees are trying their best."

Thorn's criticisms come less than a week after former Wallabies George Gregan and Drew Mitchell rounded on the state of the game on Fox Sports following Australia's series loss to Ireland. Mitchell, capped 71 times by the Wallabies, said of the current state of officiating: "We’re on the path to extinction for a lot of rugby supporters who are losing faith as to where is the game is going.

"We’re talking about changing the tackle height to nipple height, we’re talking about this (aerial challenges), the interpretation around the deliberate knockdown rule.

"(Ireland flanker) CJ Stander has chosen to lift his player (Peter O’Mahony) and lost control of him. "It’s a contest in the air and when you’ve got a player on your own team choosing to lift, you take responsibility for the safe landing of your player. "This shouldn’t even be a penalty, let alone a yellow or a judicial hearing. "It’s rubbish."