COLIN BOAG
Refs should use yellow cards when they threaten them
Cheating has been in the news a lot recently, but it’s actually deep in rugby’s DNA. Remember Richie McCaw’s ‘invisibility cloak’ that seemingly allowed him to get away with murder on the pitch? He was as good a 7 as you’ll ever see, and it was part of his job spec’ to push the boundaries of the laws as far as he could, and to stretch the ref ’s patience to just before breaking point.
Look at every scrum, and I promise you that somewhere in there several players are trying to get away with something or other to gain an edge…in other words, they’re trying to cheat.
Whenever you see the attacking side camped close to the opposition’s line it is likely you will see the defenders give away penalties – it could be hands in the ruck trying to slow the ball down, or repeated offsides.
You see this in almost every match, especially when conditions are as wet as they are at present and in last weekend’s televised Gloucester v Saracens match we had exactly that situation, and it provoked howls of frustration from BT Sports pundits, Lawrence Dallaglio and Paul Grayson.
Sarries were shedding penalties at a rate of knots
– seven I believe – and the ref, Craig Maxwell-Keys, finally issued the team warning which says that a repetition of the same offence will see someone go to the bin.
Sure enough, in the next passage of play Sarries conceded another penalty, but off the advantage Gloucester scored a try. Here’s the $64,000 question: were the seven points for the attacking team sufficient reward, or should the ref have also yellow-carded a Saracens player?
Dallaglio commented that it was probably a good result for Sarries as they had used up a lot of time on the clock, and had avoided going down to 14 men. Grayson and Dallaglio were firmly of the opinion that someone should have been yellow-carded, and surely they’re correct?
Law 9.10 is clear too: “When different players of the same team repeatedly commit the same offence, the referee gives a general caution to the team and if they then repeat the offence, the referee temporarily suspends [yellow cards] the guilty player(s).” The law doesn’t say anything about scoring a try wiping the slate clean, so isn’t that really an invitation to cheat?
An elite referee spokesperson explained the thinking, and as with so much in rugby, it isn’t cut and dried. “To some extent it depends on what the repeated penalties are for – if it’s for holding on we tend to think the penalty is the reward, and maybe that won’t count towards the tally that merits a team warning.
“However, once the warning has been given, in general we should be going back and acting on it, but if they score then that’s part of the advantage – if they don’t score we’ll go back and get rid of them.”
Apart from the obvious, that being a referee at the elite level is fiendishly difficult, I don’t think that explanation will satisfy many fans. Referees ‘interpreting’ the laws is a total cop-out – if the law is broken then the stated sanction should follow – end of.
The current situation is deeply flawed: if the attacking side fails to score and the opposition gets a player ‘binned’, then the attack continues from the penalty, and if they score then they have the points and an opposition player in the ‘bin!
Taking that to its logical conclusion it’s better not to score straight away, let your opponents go down to 14 men, and then score the try! Double whammy! Surely that isn’t how things are meant to work?
I’m firmly with Dallaglio and Grayson on this one – allowing the penalties to cynically mount up, while the clock is being run down, just isn’t good enough. After a couple of penalties the team warning should be given, and if they re-offend then a player should go to the ‘bin. That would speed things up and coaches would very quickly act to alter their players’ behaviour.
What is iniquitous about the Saracens saga, is that the details of the judgement are still being kept under wraps. The information needs to be put into the public domain – if it isn’t then the conclusion many will draw is that there are some things PRL and the other clubs would like to keep hidden. We need to see that the action taken against Sarries was justified.