Cheats, thugs and bad refs are causing a crisis
Question: if you knowingly stand offside over your goalline to reduce the chance of the opposition scoring, are you cheating?
Strangely those fabulous four moptops debated this one in song 50 years ago. So if you wouldn’t mind joining in, and you at the back, please pick up the tambourine.
I say ‘‘Yes’’, you say ‘‘No’’.
I say ‘‘Stop’’ and you say ‘‘Go, go, go’’.
Oh no.
I say ‘‘Goodbye’’ (yellow card) and you say ‘‘Hello, hello, hello’’.
I’m sorry, but this is not a singing matter. The cheating in Super Rugby has reached epidemic proportions and it is making the game almost unwatchable. And sad to say New Zealand and Australian teams are comfortably the worst offenders.
Last weekend all four New Zealand teams (the Chiefs were on a bye) routinely and repeatedly infringed whenever the opposition came close to the line. It was clearly coached cheating. And there is only one way to put a stop to it. Bring in red cards.
Referees need to be given a ‘red zone’. They need to be told to apply escalating sanctions when teams repeatedly infringe within 10 metres of their line. The second offence warrants a yellow card. The third offence is a red card. Believe me, teams would then get onside very quickly. Believe me, teams would then stop pulling down every lineout that threatens the line.
Let’s have a snapshot of each of those four games. Sadly referee Glen Jackson had an absolute disaster in South Africa. A referee I spoke to is still looking for the offside at the end of the game. But that is not to take into account everything that went before.
To give the Highlanders the chance to win off the most marginal offside in a non threatening part of the pitch was lamentable when you consider the end of the first half. The Bulls were hammering away at the line. Jackson Hemopo blatantly pulled down the lineout maul. The Bulls hammer on, the Highlanders stream up offside, nothing given. Even before that Jackson had failed to give the Highlanders tighthead a yellow card for repeated offences. Why?
In the second half Lima Sopoaga twice infringed quite blatantly on his own line. On the first occasion he rushed up the side of a ruck to try to disrupt play. On the second occasion he lay on the ball so that the Bulls could not gain quick possession. He should not even have been on the pitch to kick the winning goal, but Jackson did not even give a penalty. Even the frostiest man of Otago would admit that the Bulls were absolutely dudded.
Paul Williams did no better in the game between the Blues and the Jaguares.The first thing that the young ref needs to learn is to stop calling the players by their first name. That type of familiarity reeks of partiality if you don’t happen to know the first names of all the Jaguares. And Williams clearly didn’t.
At the end of the half the Blues committed four consecutive penalty offences in added on time. But Williams had already penalised them for repeated infringing at the start of the half. So instead of escalating the punishment, he did nothing. And that is the weakness that sides rely on. They infringe early on, knowing the ref will give up.
There is a paragraph in a novel by Aldous Huxley that says, ‘‘We should all like to behave a good deal worse than our conscience and respect for public opinion allow. One of the great attractions of patriotism – it fulfils our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we’re profoundly virtuous.’’
It is precisely so for rugby players, whether it be for regional tribe or for nation. I am sure that the Hurricanes’ Michael Fatialofa felt profoundly virtuous when he disrupted a Sunwolves maul two yards from the line by using an offside position to drive in at the side. Assistant ref Nic Bryant was three yards away. He did nothing. Astonishingly he then advised referee Jamie Nutbrown to penalise the Sunwolves for a double movement.
Nick Briant was as negligent on Friday night, failing to award both a penalty try and a yellow card when the Crusaders blatantly pulled down a Rebels maul that was going over.
So a word of praise for Mike Fraser and his officials. The Jaguares won in Rotorua on Friday because Fraser gave two yellow cards in a minute and penalised the Chiefs for three consecutive acts of outright cheating.
The Sunwolves were not so blessed the week before.
I am sure Reed Prinsep felt profoundly virtuous when he pulled down another Sunwolves drive and then took up offside position after offside position Sadly Nutbrown was not up to penalising any of it. And I can hear the coaches getting into Ardie Savea for missing a tackle that led to a try in the first half.
‘‘Too far back son. You have to creep up a metre. He would never have got the momentum if you had got him earlier.’’
That’s what the All Blacks do. They vicariously bully and cheat in the name of patriotism. But they are now in jeopardy. As we found out in the Lions series – and it cost the All Blacks the series – what they get away with in Super Rugby doesn’t fly with many northern hemisphere refs. And two of the refs for the June series against France – Luke Pearce and John Lacey – are from the northern hemisphere. Don’t worry, the French will be knackered.
We know Jaco Peyper would not have sent off SBW in the second Lions test. He was even urging caution at the time. And his refereeing of last weekend’s match between the Brumbies and the Crusaders came close to bringing the game into disrepute.
He failed to yellow card the Brumbies blindside for a shoulder charge that could have broken Ryan Crotty’s collar bone. His refereeing of the offside line, both ways, was erratic. Referees have to give a loud and clear early message.
But a Brumby who made a trysaving tackle, running back from a position 15 metres offside, was not even penalised. And Peyper penalised the Brumbies scrum early on for a knee on the ground, but failed to apply the consistent sanction to Owen Franks when he twice did the same thing.
But the biggest scandal was the failure to send off Chance Peni for his grotesque and possibly career ending tackle on Israel Dagg. Peni has form. Last season he managed to take out a second row forward by leaping into his head with his shoulder.
Again Peni wasn’t sent off at the time. Again the punishment was retrospective. I am starting to suspect that TV, Sanzaar and the refs are in cahoots not to send players off, never mind what the law says, in order to preserve ‘‘the spectacle’’.
But who will preserve Dagg? After Peni had butchered a defenceless Dagg with a swinging arm, Peyper said, ‘‘There’s a reasonable amount of force. I’m not sure it’s the worst.’’
TMO Ian Smith replied, ‘‘Yeah, there’s not a huge amount. It’s not excessive force.’’
‘‘Happy with a yellow card?’’
‘‘I am.’’
Not the worst, not excessive, what are these people on? Do you have to drive a crane onto the pitch with a wrecking ball attached to the arm? Refereeing in the southern hemisphere is in crisis. It is allowing cheats to prosper. The upshot is a game that is turning off its TV audience by the thousand. For the viewers’ sake, for the players’ sake and for the All Blacks’ sake, someone needs to get a grip.
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