Rassie Erasmus has found an ally in former Springbok coach Ian McIntosh, who has commended South Africa’s director of rugby for his recent video criticism of match officials.

Erasmus is facing a World Rugby disciplinary for criticising referee Nic Berry and other match officials for the way they handled the first Test between the Springboks and British and Irish Lions in Cape Town last month.

World Rugby issued a statement earlier this month in which they said the hour-long video breached their regulations and the game’s governing body summoned Erasmus and South Africa Rugby to the misconduct hearing.

But McIntosh, who was South Africa’s head coach in 1993 and 1994, believes instead of disciplining Erasmus, World Rugby should rather figure out a way to revise some of the sport’s complicated laws.

“It is not for me to say whether Rassie used the correct channels, but I do feel that something had to be done to gain the attention of the officials because the game has become far too complicated and a stop-start affair,” he told IOL Sport.

Rugby is over-officiated

“It has been spoilt for players, coaches and the spectators. The game has become over-officiated because of too many ‘provisions’ being added each year to the laws.

“Instead of World Rugby disciplining Rassie, he should be commended and a committee established to revise the laws which are too many, contradictory and, in some cases, nonsensical.”

McIntosh has experience of serving on World Rugby’s experimental laws committee – when the organisation was still known as the International Rugby Board. At the time, recommendations were made to simplify rugby’s laws but he revealed that few of those were implemented.

“Can someone respectfully inform World Rugby that the laws were intended to keep the game flowing, not stop it, and that the referee should become No 31 on the field again and not No 1,” said McIntosh.

“Just knowing the laws doesn’t make a referee. It’s about how they are applied that is the difference between a good and bad referee, like a good fly-half who knows how to read the game and to use the ball accordingly.”