Jeff Probyn: Axed Pollock pays price for Lions’ lack of Plan B

It may be over and finished but the Lions tour is still reverberating throughout the game – and not in a positive way. The criticism of New Zealand referee Chris Pollock after the Lions victory in the first Test   has seen him axed by SANZAR referees boss Lyndon Bray from this week's Super Rugby semi-final qualifiers.
Bray said that Pollock had had a “pretty tough month” and needed “to get over it and get back to a really good space and really good form for the rest of the season”.
Now I am not one for feeling sorry for referees or overstating their importance to the game. I have always believed that the role of the referee is to make sure the game flows and that a fair competition takes place, nothing more, nothing less.
That said, I do think that the fuss made about how “bad” Pollock was and then how good Craig Joubert was going to be in the second Test left the Lions management with nowhere to go when Joubert's decisions come scrum time were no better and, in fact, did more damage to the Lions than Pollock.
Criticising a referee when you win gives you a sort of moral high ground whereas, saying anything when you lose just looks like a whinge, a fact that Gatland knows well, so no comments were made following the second Test, although I am sure the Lions management were just as dissatisfied with Joubert's performance as Pollock's.
Every game will have moments when you, as a player, or as a team will feel that the referee has got it wrong but it is how you react and how quickly you can adjust your game to the referee's desires that defines you as a good or great team.
Seeking to blame the referee for a lack of flexibility is a trait that has become more  prevalent since the advent of the professional game.
It would appear that today's professional coaches are so arrogant that they believe that the game they coach is the game that the referee must play to and if not, he should be dropped.
One aspect of rugby that is the envy of other team sports is the respect shown to match officials but that respect is slowly being eroded by a stream of criticism from the media and comments made during post match interviews.
When a referee makes a decision he is making it at normal speed from one angle and without the use of a slow motion replay while the media critics have a multi-angle, freeze frame view of almost every play in the game.
Funny thing is, despite that technology and a so called expert knowledge, many times the ‘Stuart Barneses' of the media world are just as wrong as the referee, particularly when it comes to the scrum.
With the mess that is currently the scrum at the elite end of the game (surprisingly if you drop down a level scrums are far less of a problem) it is virtually impossible for anyone to understand why a referee will blow his whistle and yet these so called experts say he got it wrong.
How can you know if the referee is wrong if you don't know what he thinks he has seen or how he wants the scrum to form?
A perfect example is the 2003 World Cup final where referee Andre Watson seemed intent on penalising a dominant English scrum off the park, potentially handing victory to the Australians.
Every time the scrum engaged Watson penalised Phil Vickery despite his dominance over Matt Dunning.
All the commentators said that Watson got it wrong and yet he was insistent whenever captain Martin Johnson questioned him saying “look at the video after the game”. Fortunately Jason Leonard came on and sorted the problem and England won – but to this day, many of the “expert” commentators make reference to the fact that Watson was wrong.
What they could not see was what Watson thought he saw: as the scrum engaged ,Vickery's power forced Dunning back and out, at which point Vickery's angle turns in on the hooker.
Dunning's lack of fitness made this more instant as the game progressed which I believe Watson interpreted as Vickery boring into the Australian hooker – a penalty offence.
Vickery was unable to change his game to fit with the referee's interpretation of events and so kept giving away penalties until replaced by the more experienced Leonard.
Was that Vickery or Phil Keith Roach the scrum coach's fault, or was it Watson mistake? It was none of them. But the age old definition was that the referee is the sole arbitor of the game, so it was always the player at fault. However, in the modern game the referee is no longer the sole arbitor. But he is the man with the whistle and how he interprets the game should not be seen as an excuse for winning or losing.
A lack of flexibility to change from plan A to plan B could have cost the Lions the series but fortunately Romain Poite, the French referee in the third Test, liked plan A and the lions prospered. But Pollock has paid the price for the Lions inflexibility.
Another worrying aspect of the Lions series win, is the impact it has had on season ticket prices. As the big name players seek to capitalise on their fame, someone has to pay – and that someone is the fan.
As a sport that can barely wash its face financially it is morally wrong for most of the money coming in to be spent on wages rather than the development of a sustainable game.