With the Super 14 season underway Spiro Zavos calls for the referee's merit panel to be rethought on rugbyheaven.com.au.
"In an email exchange with the journalist D.D. McNicoll, the retiring High Court judge Michael Kirby revealed that when he was a student at Fort Street High School he'd been a rugby union referee: "I refereed many games and could not sympathise with the advantage rule."
"This comment goes to the real issue of why SANZAR's noble experiment for this year's Super 14 tournament of an inaugural nine-referee panel based on merit rather than nationality won't work. The merit panel includes four South Africans, three Australians and two New Zealanders.
"The South African referees and the Australian Stuart Dickinson are, in my opinion, way ahead of the other merit referees in experience and quality. This raises the issue of what standard applies to the merit panel concept."
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