Yet more poor reffing from the game’s elite
It just keeps happening, and as fans we’re being let down badly, but the worst thing about it is that nobody seems to care. I’m talking about match results that are possibly altered by poor refereeing decisions – ones that could easily be avoided.
When Richie McCaw was playing for the All Blacks, fans across the globe joked about his ‘invisibility cloak’ that seemingly prevented referees from seeing what he was up to. It’s all part of a widespread belief that, for whatever reason, New Zealand seem to get the rub of the green whenever they play. Last weekend in Auckland it happened again, and yet another referee decided to spurn the protection the TMO could have offered.
It all started when Luke Pearce yellow-carded the French lock Paul Gabrillagues for a high tackle on Ryan Crotty. Crotty milked it for all he was worth, and the Eden Park crowd bayed for blood. Pearce went straight for his card, declining the chance to let the TMO have a look. If he had, he would have seen there was nothing wrong with the tackle – it probably wasn’t even a penalty.
What made this so catastrophic was that France were doing a fine job of matching the All Blacks, but as soon as they went down to 14 men the floodgates opened – effectively it was game over. The case can be made that this one poor decision ruined the match.
A few minutes later we had another incident that might have evened things up, and that became the talking point that dominated the next few days.
France winger Remy Grosso was tackled by Sam Cane, and then Ofa Tu’ungafasi’s head hit him so hard that he sustained a double facial fracture. Now, rugby’s a rough old game, and the seriousness of the injury doesn’t mean that anything illegal happened, but in this case it did. Unlike the Gabrillagues incident, the tackle was high, and I would argue that there was no real attempt to wrap the arms – the second arm eventually arrived, but it was almost an afterthought! Tu’ungafasi led with the head with precious little duty of care. However, Pearce was clear that it was ‘A clash of heads, that was all’, and he invited the TMO to agree with him – talk about leading the witness! Quite what planet George Ayoub was on is beyond me, as he meekly complied.
A subsequent review of the incident resulted in the citing commisioner deciding that Tu’ungafasi’s ‘tackle’ fell just short of meriting a red card. That beggars belief, and jars with the oft-repeated weasel words that player welfare is paramount, and concussion is one of the biggest challenges the game faces. If you were a parent thinking about letting your kids take up rugby, what affect would that have on your thinking? There is no doubt in my mind that both All Black players should at least have seen cards, and one of them red – had that happened, who knows what the result might have been. Even one measly yellow would have evened things up and then, who knows?
Yet another high-profile match where the result might have been determined by failure to properly use the TMO, and by the TMO’s reluctance to stand up to the referee. Sadly, it wasn’t the only one last weekend as in the South Africa v England game the New Zealand ref, Ben O’Keefe, decided Mako Vunipola deserved ten minutes in the bin for doing virtually nothing to Faf de Klerk, who made a meal of it. Had the TMO been asked to look at it, he would have said there was nothing in it – I’ve seen harder contacts between two people wearing Sumo suits. This was yet another close contest where the result may well have been decided by weak or arrogant refereeing.
Eden Park and Ellis Park are bearpits, and the home support is ferocious – it’s hard to avoid drawing the conclusion that even experienced refs can get intimidated and influenced by the level of noise – that’s all the more reason for them to seek help from their TMO.
World Rugby really needs to get a grip on this, and lay the law down about the need for refs to use the TMO and the technology. Fans deserve to see a game where you feel afterwards that the best team won, and aren’t left feeling that the referee played too big a part in the result. It worries me most that there seems to be a culture developing where the spectacle is more important than the final result.
Call me old-fashioned, I’d like the best team to win. Put simply, as fans we’re being shortchanged, and results are becoming a lottery.