Complex laws and World Rugby failed fans and Angus Gardner in Wellington

Saturday's third Test between New Zealand and France should be seen as a one-off.

The series is done and dusted and what I -- and I am sure a lot of other fans -- want to see is just a Test match between two teams of 15 players allowed to get on with playing rugby.

Watching the second Test I was really excited and expecting an impressive France performance, but I knew to get a competitive and evenly-matched game, we'd need all 15 men from both sides on the field.

As soon as referee Angus Gardner's red card came out it just depleted all the enthusiasm for the contest. I felt like switching the TV off and walking away, and I'm sure that's exactly what happened to a lot of fans.

It ruined the game as a spectacle and the only comfort I could find was that at least I hadn't paid to attend. It was what nobody wanted.

The law is basically an ass over the way it is interpreted.

Days after the contest, World Rugby released a statement saying Gardner got the call wrong. But if you look at the directives World Rugby have been sending the referees, Benjamin Fall's actions were red-card worthy. Even the commentary, who receive directives from World Rugby, knew the action required a red card.

Gardner did his job. You could hear him working through the checklist to ensure he was making the right decision.

It's two fingers to World Rugby who shouldn't be such gutless beasts if they are not going to back up their referees.

World Rugby said Gardner was not at fault, but if you go back and re-read all the paperwork that's been pushed down to these guys, according to the letter of the law that's how he's been told to referee.

Gardner is the bloke in the firing line, we're all pointing the finger at him, but at the end of the day he is the police officer, he's not the guy who makes the laws.

What Fall did wasn't even clumsy. He contested, his eyes were clearly on the ball. Beauden Barrett won the contest, he was higher than the French winger. But Fall went into the contact to win the ball, not cause physical harm to Barrett.

It's just so wrong.

At the moment you have the law book, and then you have the interpretations that come down from above and it is almost a thesis. Anyone who can understand all the laws of rugby must be worthy of some sort of Master's degree.

It's a farce really, especially when there is a World Cup going on in football where the laws are so simple and everyone understands them. You kick the ball between the posts and you get yourself a goal.

All the emphasis has been on intent. Yes, people are going to get hurt. People get hurt every day, even when walking down the street, crossing the road, in their workplace. Accidents happen. In contact sports, accidents happen. We can't clean everything up, there will be injuries.

Short of banning the game, or not having any contact at all, we've got to stop being caught up in a nanny state. Yes, Barrett came off injured. That's unfortunate. But he's not the first player in the world to ever get injured. If you wrap your players up in cotton wool you're going to turn your fans off.

After the incident I wondered if the players were like the fans and switched off. Some of the changes that were made; Owen Franks came off very quickly and they decided to give everyone a run with a bit more time than they might usually get.

The game wasn't exciting. There was some good play and some average play, but there was no enthusiasm in it.

Damian McKenzie tried to speed the game up and probably tried too hard. When you have the numerical advantage, 15 against 14, it's easier to calm down and slow it, because you're going to catch them on defence.

What you really need in that circumstance is patience. New Zealand didn't have the patience they needed to catch the French defence out, at which point tries come.

But we never got to that point. It was unlike the first Test where we played the first half with patience and composure, before the tries eventually started flowing in the final 30 minutes.

You have to give full credit to the French for the way they played with 14 men. They went up a gear.

I think France will go into the third Test feeling they have been completely robbed in the first two matches. They'll be angry, and they have every right to be. As an All Blacks fan I would like to see France go out and push New Zealand hard.

They deserve something. I feel sorry for them and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels sorry for Les Bleus. I want to see competitive sport. I want them to come down here and really test us and just to show how much better they are than French teams we've played in recent times.

We haven't seen the best of them. They have serious pace to burn outside and you can see -- although we haven't seen the best of him -- that Mathieu Bastareaud is a very strong centre. He's brushed off Anton Lienert-Brown and Ryan Crotty a few times in both Tests.

Halfback Morgan Parra is electric and he's got all that experience, he's dangerous. And their forwards, they pushed the All Blacks in the set-piece.

It was unfortunate that second five-eighths Geoffrey Doumayrou didn't score his first half try. He would have scored it 99 times out 100 any other day of the week. And then hooker Pierre Bourgarit was denied a try which, when looked at in real time, would have been a try on most occasions. That's the danger of going to the TMO and putting everything in slow motion.

It would have been a different game if one, or both, of those tries had been awarded.

As an aside, full marks to France for their gesture in training with the Long Bay College 1st XV last week. It may not be well known but a French exchange pupil to Long Bay, Peyo Crus was last year killed in a car accident halfway through a year-long visit. The Long Bay College 1st XV planted a tree of remembrance at their school and they meet in front of it before every game. They also visited Peyo's school in France last year to play for Peyo's Cup, a contest set up in his memory.