A former international rugby referee has criticised the application of TMO in the Rugby World Cup final which saw the All Blacks narrowly defeated by South Africa in a game dominated by controversial refereeing decisions. 

The Springboks claimed a fourth World Cup title after defeating a 14-man All Black side 12-11 at the Stade de France in Paris, a game which saw Sam Cane given marching orders in the first half after being shown a red card. 

Several other cards were also shown during the tense match, a try was ruled out and numerous plays were disqualified - all due to TMO decisions made in what has been referred to as an over-refereed performance. 

Talking to The Mike Hosking Breakfast on Monday, former international referee Vinny Munro was asked if he felt frustrated watching the final the previous morning. 

"Very," he responded. 

"Too many rules, [they went] upstairs too much, too many stoppages and the players can't play - that's what is so frustrating."

He agreed that referee Wayne Barnes got it right when it came to refereeing the final to the rules of the game and that he shouldn't be blamed for the rules that world rugby has introduced. 

The issue he took was with the level of TMO interference with the match. 

"Look, they missed the boat when Endzone Super Rugby trialled the red card, the player goes off for twenty minutes," he said. 

"So they took on the yellow card, you go on report and you've got eight minutes to review it, and that seems to have worked okay. But when you've got the best spectacle, the best game in the world every four years and that's how it ends up then something's wrong."

Munro said the game was far from entertaining, with a great number of people who enjoy rugby likely becoming casual observers due to "what they've seen week in and week out". 

He said it's the signs of the implementation of technology beginning to kill the sport. 

"They've got a very good judicial system which will pick everything up that's missed, so a person who goes out and commits foul play will get dealt with either way," said Munro. 

"But why ruin it for millions of people live?"

Former All Black, Sean Fitzpatrick told Mike Hosking the over-refereeing was already an issue well before the final.

“Throughout the tournament, there’s just been so many inconsistencies that it doesn’t give you any confidence and it spoils the game," he said. 

"Fourteen on fifteen for fifty-five minutes, people pay a lot of money to watch a game of rugby that's fifteen on fifteen and that unfortunately didn't happen - that was through the interpretation of one man."

He said the nature of the game brought the heavy plethora of rules that referees must run a game of rugby according to but said consistency was needed. 

"In terms of a World Cup final, in terms of how it's interpreted, [we need it] to be better than how it was yesterday."