Giving TMO extra powers a no-brainer

Being a staunch Lions fan I’m not going to bitch about the forward pass in Saturday’s Jukskei derby that led to Piet van Zyl’s second try and ultimately a win for the Bulls.

That would just be sour grapes, right?

So instead of complaining, I’m going to use this forum to discuss the merits of giving the TMO a bigger insight into proceedings.

In the build-up to the particular try, referee Marius van der Westhuizen and his two touchjudges missed a clear forward pass from Arno Botha to Jan Serfontein. Not ideal at this level, but perfectly acceptable because all three on-field officials are human beings after all and mere mortals make mistakes.

But there we had TMO Deon van Blommenstein sitting in his cosy booth armed with a television and immediate replays from several angles, as well as a direct hotline to the ref. Before the conversion was even taken, SuperSport’s replay confirmed that Botha’s offload was forward, with the commentators in agreement.

There we have a stadium full of people seeing the forward pass during the replay on the big screen and many more watching on television witnessing a try that shouldn’t have been allowed.

But the sad thing is, the thousands of people watching were as powerless as Van Blommenstein

Jaco van der Merwe

himself. Why? Because the rules of the game only allows the TMO to come into play upon the referee’s request. So obviously Van der Westhuizen was under the impression that the pass was legal, because if he was in doubt, he would have surely referred it.

Now this is exactly my problem with the limited role of the TMO. Had he been empowered to freely advise the referee, he would have picked up the forward pass immediately. All he had to do was advise the ref after he awarded the try that he was reviewing it, request a replay to confirm the forward pass, watch the replay and tell the ref to cancel the try and award a scrum to the Lions.

All of this could have taken less than 30 seconds, less time than it took to award the try and for Handre Pollard to place the ball and convert the try.

Sometimes if the referee asks the TMO for assistance when he is unsure whether to award a try, it takes ages to reach a decision. They show several camera angles over and over again, which often still prove to be inconclusive, in which case the TMO and all the technology at his disposal can’t add any value and it turns out to be a big waste of time.

Having the technology at his disposal already, why can’t the TMO use it to add value and respectability to the game without wasting a lot of time?

The touch-judges are empowered to come into play if they have picked up something that the referee has missed, so why can’t the TMO?

If he’s going to sit there with his hands tied and be an accomplice to irregularities taking place right under his nose, rather call him a TMC (Television Monitor Consultant), because he surely isn’t doing any officiating.