Australia play England in Sydney, and it is interesting to listen to what a commentator has to say.

A scrum collapses and the referee penalises the Australian props, Salesi Ma'afu and Ben Daley. It is the third time the Australian front row is penalised at a dropped scrum.

Jonny Wilkinson goals the penalty and England go into a 21-20 lead, which is the final score as nobody scores in the last half an hour.

The commentator's words are of interest.

Commentator (Phil Kearns): "There's no doubt that the referees come into the games with preconceived ideas and you've got to work hard to get them out of that. You've got to create a reputation to turn that around."

"There's no doubt." That's a degree of infallibility which is awesome. It is an infallible statement on another human being's mental/psychological state. The referee in question is one of the 16 top referees in the world, chosen by those trained and competent enough to judge a referee and here he is one of those who - no doubt - come into a game with preconceived ideas".

At the start of the match, before the referee, Romain Poite of France, had even blown his whistle, the main commentator went through the stats of scrums from the previous week when Poite had been assistant referee and Australia had been penalised nine times for falling scrums.

Phil Kearns picked up on that: "A lot of those penalties were called by referee Poite who's out there tonight. He was the one on the air as a touch judge last week. So referee Poite will come into this game with preconceived ideas."

Not only infallible but prescient as well. One wonders who has the preconceived ideas - referee or commentator.

Earlier in the match the referee - a top practitioner - was accused of guesswork. Now it is of having preconceived ideas. That he should be so fundamentally flawed makes one question the judgement of those trained and competent men who put him in such a position.

Obviously the referee had seen the falling scrums the week before. Obviously many referees will watch video footage of teams they are to referee as part of their preparation. But that does not prevent them from making a judgement on what happens in front of them; otherwise just reading the law book could form preconceived ideas.

There are 14 scrums in this match with 12 collapses. The referee penalises five times - Australia three times, England twice. That sounds as if the referee was acting on the evidence presented to him each time - not on a preconceived idea which may have said that every time the scrum collapses it is Australia's fault and they could be penalised.

An infallible judge may well have said: "There is no doubt that the commentator has preconceived ideas about the referee and will not give him a fair chance."

Such comment is not helpful to the game and the way the commentator found the referee's name and accent amusing was really unfair and in fact just cheap shots.