Does Wayne Barnes have a future as a referee?

Wayne Barnes, in case you've forgotten was the referee in the New Zealand v France quarterfinal at the RWC. He's one of the trio that missed that forward pass.

Since then I've seen him referee twice, two Heineken Cup matches. Last week (Llanelli v Munster) he missed a quick throw in that was illegal since:

1. It hit someone in the crowd
2. Was taken with both feet in the field of play
3. May well have been not straight (forward in fact)

Now, you may argue that's the touch judge's responsibility to call (except the not straight), but the referee also has authority there and they weren't subtle offenses, he should have spotted them. There was also a big forward pass. They didn't as obviously dramatically affect the outcome as in RWC match, but they were big, obvious errors.

Today he stood between the scrum half and fly half for Cardiff near the end of the match, and got in the way of the pass. Happily for Cardiff and Barnes, from the resulting scrum the scrum half found the fly half, who slotted a drop goal, and Cardiff denied Stade a losing bonus point. Now, I don't know about you, but my confidence in Barnes is sufficiently eroded I feel the need to say that, thanks to work committments, I only saw the last 20 minutes of the match, and this was the only big mistake in that time.

I don't think, generally speaking, referees are biased. I do accept that they all make mistakes - they are human and there's an amazing amount going on with 30 players and a funny shaped ball, and a lot of it is "dark arts" like front row offenses. Add to that the fact that actions which are perfectly legal now (reaching over, whilst on your feet to grab the ball in a tackle say) are illegal in much less time than it takes to read this as the tackle turns into a ruck. The tackler must immediately release the tackled player and attempt to roll away, the tackled player must immediately release the ball. But, if there's a pile up straight away (such as at the edge of pick and drive when the tackle basically instantly becomes a ruck) attempt to roll away and immediately become very much a matter of opinion, and the referees opinion and the players', fans' and coaches' opinions are all likely to be different (just not as relevant in the heat of the moment).

So, what I'm trying to say is that I accept that they generally do a good job, to the best of their ability, and under a lot of pressure. BUT (and it's a big but, as well as a bold and italicised one) away from the heat of play most players and coaches accept that the referee will occasionally make a mistake, but by and large they are either little things (Alain Roland getting flattened in the edge of a ruck as has just happened in the background for example) or they're matters of opinion (timing on a tackle/ruck situation) and it's an honest call of the referee's opinion to the best of his ability even if you disagree with it. With Wayne Barnes he is making enough, and big enough, mistakes that I am starting to doubt his ability to manage the game and make the correct calls. He's missed, over his last three games that I've seen, big things that aren't a matter of opinion, they're a matter of easy to see fact and/or simple judgement of his own position so as to see but not interfere in the course of play.

So, let's say, to choose sides with no axe to grind, I'm the new coach of South Africa, and I'm going to play Scotland. I refuse to believe, in this day and age, that players and coaches don't watch video of the referee in action to try and learn his interpretation of the rules. What happens when they also learn that Barnes is prone to a major balls-up or two every match? How do I as a coach handle that? How do the players handle it? What do I do if "Balls-up Barnes" makes his balls-up and costs us the match? Just how long can we give him until this happens again?