Two thoughts from this weekend.
I'm biased - I'm a Crusaders fan. That pass looked questionable to me before it hit Franks' hand. It then looked like it went forward from one player without being kicked to another player on the same side, which sounds like offside to me.
I could be wrong. But the honest answer is, I'm not sure and it's really easy to look at it and think it was a home-town decision. (Interestingly a friend of mine is South African and although he's not sure about that decision he's also not sure, not convinced it was a good call, and he's totally convinced there were a number of other home-town decisions so it's not just my jaded eye.)
And that's really the problem. I don't think, even for the really crap decisions (Spreadbury and Barnes in the RWC07 quarter finals say) that the referees are usually malicious and biased. I do believe that even the best referees are human and occasionally have bad games (ones with several critical mistakes) and will make mistakes in all except their very best games. These mistakes are, hopefully, minor - missing a knock on that doesn't make a difference, making a choice about who to penalise at scrum time when you can penalise anyone etc.
However, when the assistant referee with a broad South African accent tells the referee with a broad South African accent that the side from South Africa made a legal play to beat the side from New Zealand AND it's a play that fills observers from both sides with doubts that it was legal, then there's an extra layer of doubt about the try. Even if it was the right decision and he's vindicated by hours of replays, (he's not because there aren't good enough replays) was he right? Was it an honest mistake? Was it a mistake made by an unconscious hope that his home side would win? No implication of malicious bias, just some doubt... and that's not good.
And then onto wingers. I found myself, for some reason, wondering just how scarred the England management is by Jonah Lomu and that RWC in South Africa. Bannerhan was the person I was watching, who unlike Jonah strikes me as a big, useless lump of a wing. And that, I think, is the problem. They're still fixated on Jonah and his barn-storming runs through defenders, fixated on his size and strength. They're missing the fact that he ran good lines, he pulled defenders, he would (sometimes) pass the ball inside to a player running into a gap he'd made. He wasn't a great, all-round winger (his defensive play could be weak for example because he didn't turn well) but he wasn't just a big, strong lump, he was a skillful attacking player. Bannerhan isn't. He's a big, strong lump. He rarely runs good lines. He doesn't defend. He doesn't create for others. He doesn't threaten well, in a rugby sense - he doesn't pull players to him like Lomu did and like Shane Williams, Vincent Clerc and the like do now. And notice, two of the best wingers in the world today aren't that big. Sivivatu, Habana, Williams, Clerc - that's probably the top 4 in the world and only Sivivatu is a big winger. Rococoko if he gets back to form is another great winger and a big one; Howlett though, not big. Medard, not big, Halfpenny, Earles etc. not big. Great wingers can be big, or small, or like Medard more average in size. It's about lines, speed, finding gaps, attacking the try line, covering the ground and so on. If you're Jonah, or Sivivatu, and you create the odd extra gap by shoving through the maul, that's great, If you're like Habana and Lomu and never think about passing but still score tries, that's fine. Sivivatu actually has a relatively low scoring rate in this Super 14 for example. But he's MADE about half the Chief's tries by breaking the line, penetrating, attracting the last defender and then offloading. That's not to be sniffed at either in a winger.
A good big'un won't always beat a good small 'un, not on the wing, when the ability to shimmy and sidestep can also be critical, but a good small 'un will always run rings around a bad big 'un. And Bannerhan, at club level doesn't really shine. At international level - he looks like a big lump imported for being big. Makes you wonder why...
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