Lawrence revealed last week that he had been given his first list of Super Rugby matches for the new season and none of them were in South Africa where fans have threatened him for his performance during the Rugby World Cup quarter final in which South Africa’s reign as World Champions ended.
Springbok captain John Smit and former South African official Andre Watson slammed Lawrence’s performance after the match.
The New Zealand referee added that while he wanted to travel to South Africa to deal with the criticism and get that over and done with, he said he understood that SANZAR had left him off the list for South Africa as they did not want any distractions from their tournament.
“In some ways I’d like to go and front it, but it’s not really my decision,” Lawrence told the New Zealand Herald last week.
However refs Boss Bray has since said that they did not have a policy for not giving Lawrence any matches in South Africa.
“It isn’t true that he (Bryce) won’t go to South Africa,” Bray told broadcaster SuperSport.
“That may have been an interpretation but it certainly isn’t a policy and to be honest, it isn’t about whether Bryce goes to South Africa or not.”
“It is about whether he gets back up to where he needs to be for Super Rugby.”
International Rugby Board Referees manager Paddy O’Brien has admitted that Lawrence made technical mistakes during the quarter-final but added that this was no different from any other official overseeing a flagship match in a pressure environment.
Lawrence has since been given a full debrief by International Rugby Board and Bray says that Lawrence now needs to not only get his confidence back after the fallout from the match, but also to ensure that this then filtered through to his ability to take charge of big Super Rugby matches.
Due to his dip in confidence Bray said that Lawrence was not put in charge of the big Blues vs Crusaders Super rugby match in the opening round.
“He won’t do Blues-Crusaders on day one and that is deliberate,” Bray said.
“At the moment Bryce is going to have to build himself back up to the point where we and teams have confidence in him performing in a big match situation.
“That is a fair reflection of where he is at and he will have to perform well in the early rounds to be in contention for whatever big games there are in the competition, whether they are in South Africa or not.”
Lawrence said that he had been open with Bray in assessing his Rugby World Cup quarter-final performance.
“If you put it into context he has been incredibly honest about the game, and when he came off the field he probably had a different view of his performance than when he sat back in the cold light of day. ”
“We’ve all been prone to that situation and the middle of the battle you don’t recognize that things aren’t going that well,” Bray said.
“It was one of those days where he didn’t quite connect with the impact his decisions were having on the tackle area and to his credit he has been honest about it. ”
“What is considerable now is how he gets over it – that is what is really important and we will use the first part of Super Rugby to try and restore his own confidence, it is no different than you would do with any rugby player.
“He has got to get his confidence back and he has to put in some good performances and that is his challenge right now. ”
“We have been clear with him and he knows it is very important that his ongoing involvement in Super Rugby involves the major challenge of getting back up there and staying true to his performance on the field.”
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