They might, possibly, have a point. It's not beyond all reason that, on a subconscious level, certain refs scrutinize England more closely than their opponents. But there are several caveats to such a concession:
- England have brought this upon themselves, by reverting to their negative instincts, and prioritizing disruption of the opposition over constructive attacking play. They have been one of the most streetwise* teams in the world for many years, and without a trace of shame. That they have somehow mislaid these skills is bad luck, but frankly, it's all a bit "rich".
- Just as northern-hemisphere referees have a partially-deserved reputation for overzealousness with regards to technicalities, so southern refs have had, for a long time, a tendency to favour the attacking side and over-penalise the defending team. Once again, England reaped the rewards of this for many seasons as their muscular forwards allowed Rob Andrew et al. to kick less conservative teams to death.
- The majority of the sin-binnings recently suffered by England have been open-and-shut cases. Haskell and Geraghty were stupid, Tindall suffered for the repeated sins of the team after multiple warnings, and Goode's transgression, if understandable, was transparently cynical. They do have a case regarding Lee Byrne, however!
We all remember that there was more than a whiff of "payback" when New Zealand bemoaned the forward pass that cost them so dearly in the RWC07 quarter-final. Likewise, England's bellyaching about skewed refereeing increasingly looks to the rest of us like so many chickens returning home to their Twickenham roosts.
* The standard rugby euphemism for "cheating".
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