Angry Jones gives red card to TMOs
Eddie Jones will lobby World Rugby to cut back on the ‘‘incessant use’’ of the television match official (TMO), which he fears is ruining rugby as a spectacle.
Jones intends to organise an alliance of coaches and referees to confront the lawmakers before the November internationals over what he sees as an untenable situation.
Last weekend, New Zealand should have been reduced to 12 men in their defeat to Ireland – only for the on-field referee to lose track of which players were supposed to have been sent off – while England’s 25-17 second test victory against Australia took more than two hours to complete.
Much of that was taken up with TMO reviews with the officials showing five yellow cards and a red card during the two tests in Australia so far. Jones argues that the crackdown on head contact, even if it is accidental, and the desire to use technology to eliminate all incorrect decisions has unbalanced the sport.
‘‘I’m certainly going to be pushing for it [to change], because I’ve had enough,’’ Jones said. ‘‘I don’t want to see a New Zealand-Ireland game like that ever again, where we don’t even know how many people are supposed to be on the field.
‘‘Otherwise, imagine at the next World Cup, you play a quarterfinal, you get a red card and two yellows, you’re down to 12 men and it’s just ridiculous. We’ve just gone too far down one road. But certainly before November, I’m going to be agitating for something like that. We’ve got to keep the game safe, don’t get me wrong, but accidental head contact and this incessant use of the TMO, we’ve got to cut out.’’
Jones claims that his views are widely shared among the coaching community, including Australia head coach Dave Rennie who was fined for criticising the officiating after his team’s defeat to Wales last year. Rather than being a witch-hunt for referees, Jones fully sympathises with the situation that officials are being put in by World Rugby’s edicts and says he is prepared to spearhead the push for change.
‘‘I was speaking to a few coaches over the last day,’’ Jones said. ‘‘We can’t blame the referees. The referees, coaches and players need to get together and say, ‘This is the game we want. This is the game that people want to see’ – and try to put together a case for proper officiating of the game. Everyone goes up north in November, so we’ve just got to find a way to do it. I’m sure we can organise something.
In a week in which the Wallabies v England series has been all but eclipsed in Australia by the State of Origin rugby league series, Jones believes that union is at risk of losing its appeal across the world because of
the frequent stoppages and meddling technology.
Jones supports the introduction of a rugby league-style system where referees can place controversial incidents on report for future review rather than taking immediate sanction, to allow the game to flow.
‘‘We’ve got to get a better balance in the game,’’ Jones said. ‘‘We’ve gone to trying to get everything absolutely right like it’s a tennis game. Every decision has to be right. But we have to get back to having a rhythm and a flow in the game.
‘‘You watch that [State of Origin] game last night and there was a natural flow and rhythm in it. Rugby, when it’s played at its best and we have the laws at the right level, we get that natural flow and rhythm in the game, but we don’t have it at the moment.