Pfft, Barnes is a good referee, anyone who says otherwise is a Kiwi
I am a kiwi....
He is bad very bad, I don't even have to know he's refereeing to know it's him, you can just tell, by the number of unseen forward passes that occur through his poor positioning, I mean sure every ref misses the odd one and I could probably have forgiven him for the france incident, but that final Aussie NZ tri-nations game, in the way twice of the NZ def, missed two forwards passes, combined with his failing to video ref that drop kick, it's just ridiculous. Consistently the worst international referee imo.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/rugby-world-cup-2011/news/article.cfm?c_id=522&objectid=10469541 a nice list of all his short comings in the french game