World Rugby must take blame for tackle farce
I’m not a fan of World Rugby, primarily because it seems to me to be becoming increasingly irrelevant to the future of the professional game, but for better or worse they are in charge of the RWC, and they have hardly covered themselves in glory thus far.
For a while now it has been clear that the tackle area was likely to be a flashpoint, and that’s exactly what has transpired. The signs were there that coaches and players are confused by the inconsistency regarding tackling, and World Rugby were warned that this was going to be an issue during the tournament, but they simply haven’t done enough to deal with the problem.
Action needed to be taken to curb dangerous high tackles, with player welfare being given as the reason. Of course that’s a legitimate concern, but the danger that parents would prevent their kids playing rugby for fear of injury, and the authorities concerns about litigation by injured players, were probably just as important.
It was back in May that World Rugby’s new guidelines were introduced, so it’s not as if they were sprung on everyone just days before the RWC started. All of the referees involved in the tournament, and their assistants and TMOs, have had four months of working with them, and in Alain Rolland World Rugby has their referees’ high performance manager who is responsible for making sure the message got through.
Why then did the game’s governing body have to issue a mea culpa statement just five days into the RWC stating that standards hadn’t been high enough in the early batch of games?
World Rugby have ‘previous’ in this area, and no matter that the statement was presented as a joint one from the referees and the ruling body, it came over as the officials being thrown to the wolves. What a shambles this is, with rugby’s most prestigious tournament being marred by utter incompetence. The eyes of the world are on the game, and what must fans be thinking?
First, the plain fact is there aren’t enough worldclass officials around, and the blame for that lies with World Rugby and some of the unions. I’ve watched every match so far, and apart from England’s Wayne Barnes and New Zealand’s Paul Williams, it’s fair to ask questions about all of the other referees, and about the advice they have received from their assistants and the TMOs.
This is hardly surprising when World Rugby have allowed competitions across the globe to have differing interpretations of the laws and the way they are implemented. The Premiership referees officiate differently from those in the PRO14, the Top 14 and Super Rugby: I couldn’t care less which version is chosen, but we must have consistency and World Rugby have failed to make that happen.
I would hardly ever criticise a referee for missing something that happens on the field of play – the pace of the modern game makes it an impossible ask. That’s why they need assistants and have the power to refer to the TMO – if I have a gripe it’s with their helpers. The Reece Hodge incident, which saw Fiji’s Peceli Yato knocked out, was missed by the ref and his assistants – fair enough – but the TMO, England’s Rowan Kitt, reviewed it and saw nothing untoward!
The problem with this and other incidents is that it is likely that the results of Pool games have been affected. Take Hodge off and my bet is that Fiji would have won what was a very close game. A number of other games have been similarly affected: Samoa’s Rey Lee-Lo and Moto Matu’u both should have been red-carded in the match against Russia – can anyone say that Samoa going to 13 men wouldn’t have made a difference?
World Rugby’s failure to get on top of how the tackle area is refereed is making a mockery of a great rugby showcase.
Fiji’s management took the brave decision to refer the Hodge/Yato incident to the citing commissioner, and this amazingly drew the wrath of Wallabies boss Michael Cheika, about as unreconstructed a coach as you will find. Well done to Fiji: there’s no place for rugby’s old fashioned ‘omerta’ in the modern game – Cheika ought to have been disciplined for his comments.
Questions also should be asked about Hodge’s remark at the disciplinary hearing that ‘he had no effective knowledge of World Rugby’s “decision making framework for high tackles” and had not been trained on it’! If that’s the case then Cheika and his coaching staff should be asked some serious questions.