Credibility of game, officials blown away
Brumbies v Crusaders: Classic case of futility of trying to fairly apply the laws of rugby The Crusaders reinforced their reputation as the most ‘professional’ non-test team on the planet . . . but deserved the win and the match officials deserve every bi
If you need evidence of the futility of trying to fairly apply the laws of rugby, then replay the Brumbies v Crusaders game from the weekend. Watch and weep. You will see a world-class referee, Jaco Peyper, in the first place let down by his assistants and TMO and thereafter tangling himself up in knots trying to administer scrums while being mercilessly conned by a team too clever by half.
By the time his Acme Thunderer shrilled for the final time the Crusaders reinforced their reputation as the most “professional” non-test team on the planet and the rest of us wondered what we’d seen during a second 40 minutes that was scoreless, rose to no heights and yet remained strangely mesmeric.
The game, won 21-8 by the Crusaders in Canberra, was pockmarked by two flashpoints: the first-half sinbinning of Chance Peni and the back-to-back yellow cards issued to Crusaders Scott Barrett and Ryan Crotty in the second.
Both damaged rugby’s credibility, and in one case the credibility of the match officials, and require forensic analysis.
Midway through the first half Brumbies wing Peni took returning All Black Israel Dagg out with a high shot across the chops. It was a terrible tackle. Although there was an absence of malice (in other words, it wasn’t predetermined), the misdirected violence in the hit was palpable.
To his credit, Peni knew he’d got it horribly wrong and gave himself up straight away. He would have known it was a straight red and witnessing Dagg’s post-tackle contortions on the big screen added an air of inevitability to proceedings.
Then the word came down from on high from TMO Ian Smith. “No excessive force, yellow card.”
Excuse me? Apart from knocking someone senseless with a concealed weapon, what could possibly constitute excessive force in Smith’s eyes?
Peni’s subsequent five-week suspension should be a cause of massive embarrassment for Smith and Peyper, who is experienced enough and certainly competent enough to ignore such wrong-headed advice.
As it happened, the stupidity of Peni’s 10-minute sanction was brought into sharp relief midway through a dire second half when Barrett was binned for a lineout infraction on his own line. With the caveat that the Crusaders had been warned about giving away penalties, the driving lineout maul is one of those idiosyncratically technical rugby mysteries. Defending them legally is notoriously difficult.
Here lies the contradiction: Peni is given 10 minutes for maiming a human; Barrett is given 10 minutes for getting his timing slightly wrong.
Three minutes later Crotty — who was himself a victim of a late, no-arms tackle in the first half — was also sent to the naughty chair, this time for offside. He was bang to rights, no argument (though, again, it’s preposterous to grade this offence as equivalent to Peni’s).
If the story of this match ended there, it would warrant further discussion, but it got a lot weirder. The Crusaders did what any good, cynical side would do in the situation. They milked every possible second off the clock. Their reconfigured forward pack played the Peyper perfectly, forcing scrum reset after reset.
Full marks to them and, I guess, if the Brumbies had shown even a skerrick of nous, the result might have changed.
The double sinbinning not only ruined the spectacle but in a perverse way made things simpler for the Crusaders. They were forced into total shutdown. It led me to wonder if players from the same team serving time for professional fouls — as Barrett’s and Crotty’s were deemed — should be made to sit them consecutively rather than concurrently, with the exception of the match’s final 10 minutes.
You could argue that it nullifies the numerical advantage — 14 v 15 is easier to counteract than 13 v 15 — but it in this case it would have significantly increased the time the Crusaders were short-handed.
Anyway, it’s just a thought, and it might not work, but it would be worthwhile trialing it to see if farces like last Saturday can be avoided in future.
As it was, the Crusaders deserved the win, Peni deserves every day of his five-week suspension, and the match officials deserve every bit of our incredulity.