There are plenty of amusing rugby anecdotes in Wayne Barnes’s highly readable new autobiography, Throwing the Book. Not least the time, early in his top-level refereeing career, when he had to send England’s World Cup-winning captain Martin Johnson to the sin-bin for an illegal smash on London Irish’s Delon Armitage. Johnno, having regained his feet, fixed the youthful official with his best death stare and said: “That’s the only fucking decision you’ve got right so far.”
Then there was the blokey greeting he often received from the Harlequins and England prop Joe Marler in the changing room before matches. “I’ll get it out of the way and call you a twat now, to save myself from getting sent off.” Or the time in 2007 when, following the infamous “forward pass” episode in the New Zealand v France quarter-final, he attended the semi-final as “Jimmy Barnes” in a platinum blond wig, fake moustache and giant sunglasses.
