BRISBANE, Australia, Oct 9 - New Zealanders continued to rage against English referee Wayne Barnes on Tuesday following the All Blacks's World Cup quarter-final loss to France.

New Zealand Rugby Union chairman Jock Hobbs told Radio New Zealand that two crucial decisions by Barnes had cost the All Blacks the match. New Zealand lost 20-18 in Cardiff on Saturday.

Hobbs said the first was when Barnes sin-binned centre Luke McAllister for deliberate obstruction and the second was when he missed a forward pass in the lead up to France's second try.

New Zealand rugby had not commented on Barnes's performance until Hobbs broke his silence on Tuesday.

"Some of the decisions the referee made had an enormous bearing on the outcome," Hobbs told Radio New Zealand.

"In our view some of the decisions were very, very questionable.

"We would like that performance to be reviewed, to be considered as part of what we would hope anyway that Rugby World Cup Limited would do in terms of their performance."

However, Hobbs's criticism of Barnes was mild compared with some.

New Zealand media and Web sites have been relentless in their attacks on the former barrister, who is in his first year of refereeing internationally.

Ian Anderson in the Waikato Times said the "incompetent" Barnes was "the worst referee at the rugby World Cup".

"The 28-year-old Englishman broke the hearts of a nation yesterday when he oversaw the All Blacks' 20-18 loss to France in Cardiff in a staggering display of inept officialdom," Anderson wrote.

Rotorua referee Peri Marks told The Daily Post that Barnes was too inexperienced.

"I think the occasion was too big for him," Marks said. "(Barnes) was too slow for the game. It was a great game but it could've been better.

"I firmly believe we were done big-time by refereeing decisions."

Thousands of New Zealanders vented their fury online with chatrooms and message boards besieged by angry supporters.

Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia was forced to remove a mock obituary of the referee which said he had been "lynched" by a mob after the game.

Barnes did receive some support, however, from New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark.

Asked her opinion on the referee, Clark told reporters she would have hoped that the All Blacks had played well enough for the refereeing not to be a factor.