IT REALLY goes against the grain, but we do now have to seriously ask whether South African referees have got it in for Scotland.

Given what Craig Joubert did to us in the World Cup, there were quite a few Scots wary of Jaco Peyper being appointed to referee the RBS 6 Nations match in Italy, and he did not let his detractors down.

No one can seriously suggest that Peyper was biased, can they? Yet with several decisions he showed at best incompetence, at worst a certain animus, as lawyers might have it, against the Scots, not least when it came to the sin bin.

On Saturday, Peyper did his best to give Italy the game in handing out two yellow cards to none despite the home side’s constant indiscipline.

It beggars belief that Peyper showed the card to Finn Russell after the hour mark. Yes, he had warned Scottish captain Greig Laidlaw about Scotland’s discipline at the rucks, but Peyper completely ignored Laidlaw being dumped on his head shortly before he penalised Russell for the technical infringement which replays showed was a dubious decision because the ball was not on the ground and Russell was correctly positioned.

That it was dubious can be proven by the fact that Peyper had to consult the TMO to check who he was going to sin bin! If a referee can’t even identify a player in plain sight then what is he doing in international rugby?

Another instance of Peyper blindness: in the run up to Hardie’s try, an Italian forward not only blocks Hogg’s run but holds on to him to prevent the full-back following through on Russell’s right – and Peyper is standing no more than four yards away looking directly at the incident. He may have called the penalty but it was a definite yellow card that he ‘forgot’ after awarding the try.

Clearly Peyper can read minds. With five minutes left he decided that Willem Nel had deliberately knocked on, but as any prop would tell you, you just stick out your hand instinctively to try and grab the ball.

By far his worst decision was his failure to sin bin or even send off Bernabo for deliberately pulling down John Barclay in a lineout after 73 mins. He even reviewed it but still didn’t show the Italian a yellow card.

Ask anyone who knows anything about rugby and they will say the pulling down of lineout jumpers is one of the most dangerous of all situations in the game.

So too is collapsing the scrum or otherwise failing to keep the scrum solid. Italy gave away six penalties at the scrum on Saturday but Peyper never showed a yellow card.

At the very least, Peyper needs a lesson in what really matters in rugby.

The point is that Peyper was hot on technical offences but missed several instance of dangerous play by the Italians.

So what does World Rugby really want? Referees who blatantly ignore foul and dangerous play, or referees who can quote you the laws and know nothing about the realities of the game.