Why referees are bad for rugby’s health
Damian McKenzie and Richie Mo’unga reminded us at the weekend of the extraordinary talents that so often blaze across New Zealand Rugby. They also reminded us, unwittingly, of the crude side of the game. Mo’unga in particular was a target for the wreckers who go about smashing up the revellers at the dance.
The game at large has recognised that the scourge of the high tackle is a problem that cannot continue. It is simply not OK that Mckenzie and Mo’unga and the rest of the magicians should confront a painful, fuggy, drooling middle-age when their glory days have passed. It is simply not OK to let sportspeople beat each other about the head.
But New Zealand, or at least large parts of the rugby community, are still struggling to come to terms with this concept. There are still too many high tackles in Super Rugby – it is scandalous just how infrequently they are being penalised.
In the four games involving Kiwi teams at the weekend just gone, I counted around 40 high or dangerous tackles (several from the opposition, particularly the Sunwolves). There was one yellow card and four penalties. That means about one in ten dangerous tackles is being penalised. So what on earth is going on?
J’accuse Lyndon Bray. Super Rugby’s game manager has consistently failed to bring the southern hemisphere’s premier competition up to northern standards of safety conscious officiating. Bray has appeared to be far more interested in the ‘product’ than in player welfare.
Before this season Bray said: ‘‘The [referees’] camp has allowed the Super Rugby refereeing team to continue to evolve its game plan and match management protocols, anchored by the key deliverable, ‘‘how do we as referees deliver a successful Super Rugby game?’’ Within this is the main objective to assist the very talented players in the tournament to play their best rugby.’’
When your mouth is full of words like protocol and key deliverable, you know that it has headed south and now resides somewhere near your backside. The main job of the referee is to referee fairly, accurately and safely. Super Rugby refs failed at all three of those ‘‘key deliverables’’ at the weekend.
Paul Williams is a promising young referee but he failed to protect the players in the game between the Blues and the Crusaders on Friday night. There were some horrendous tackles in the match and they went unnoticed and unpunished.
Most of the violence came from the Blues. In the fourth minute Patrick Tuipulotu, who otherwise had an outstanding game, came at Mo’unga. His tackle was high, reckless and his shoulder appeared to make contact with Mo’unga’s head. It looked like a red card offence. Not even a penalty was given.
This official negligence extended to TMO Shane McDermott who did not intervene once to call Williams’s attention to dangerous play. It is as if World Rugby’s belated but laudable attempts to make the game safer never happened.
Mo’unga was the victim of three attempted high shots and nothing was done. TJ Faiane was guilty of three high tackles in the second half and Tuipulotu and Parsons were out of order on more than one occasion. They too were not sanctioned.
It was also noticeable how different the tackle technique of the two teams was. The Crusaders got it badly wrong once when Oli Jager and Codie Taylor were upright and had a horrible clash of heads. But they have changed. They are consistently going far lower than in previous seasons.
The Blues have not managed to make the same progress. This is surely down to coaching. The cheerful Tana Umaga, not noted for sparing opponents’ heads during his playing days, is in charge of the Blues’ defence. Mark Jones, a former Wales wing, is in charge of the Crusaders defence.
Jones said before the season: ‘‘We’ve been working pretty hard on our tackle technique. And I think all the Super franchises would have been buying into that too. I think it’s a sensible approach to the game.’’
Most Super Rugby teams, with the exception of the Blues, have made significant improvements in their tackle height. Unfortunately the referees and officials have not.
The failure of Nic Berry and TMO Ian Smith to red card Sio Tomkinson was shocking. How on earth did they think there was no contact with the head of Tom Banks. Berry sent off
‘‘It is as if World Rugby’s belated but laudable attempts to make the game safer never happened.’’
Bundee Akee and John Quill at the World Cup, so he knows the standard.
It is hard not to assume that, back in the southern hemisphere, their standards have dropped. Oh my goodness, don’t give someone a card, it might spoil the product. Tomkinson was guilty of a dangerous tackle that lacked a wrapping arm in the first half and he was ludicrously let off by a jury, headed by a New Zealander, after Glen Jackson had rightly sent him off for a dangerous tackle on Brodie Retallick. Tomkinson has form.
A swinging arm from the Sunwolves Conraad van Vuuren to the head of the Chiefs first five only merited a penalty in the game over in Japan. ‘Wow’ said the Chiefs coach in the box when the decision was relayed. But it was a weekend of wows.
And the biggest wowser was Ben O’Keeffe. From the end of the first half of the game between the Canes and the Sharks, the New Zealand ref made a series of decisions that reminded you of the days when the man in the middle would say: ‘‘Our ball.’’
He changed a decision at TJ Perenara’s request. He let the Canes seven consistently play ball off his feet. He gave the Canes a scrum when Lukhanyo Am had caught a kick, so regardless of whether it was ruck or maul, it was still Sharks ball. His touch judge missed a Canes foot in touch. O’Keeffe said advantage from a knock on when circumstances clearly dictated that there was no such thing and the Canes waltzed back in for a try.
There were numerous more decisions that were clearly wrong in this match-deciding 20 minutes. It finally came to a head, literally, when Dane Coles slid in on the tackled man on the ground and made contact with his head. Between them O’Keeffe and TMO Aaron Paterson decided that there was ‘‘an attempt to wrap’’ so ‘‘just a penalty.’’
This was an astonishing decision. The point about Coles was that he had no business sliding into a tackled player on the ground. So his act was both illegal and dangerous. It was a straightforward yellow card.
But just in case the refs had a multiple brain fade, Coles made their job easier by playing a Sharks jumper in the air (he dove through dangerously on the legs) at a lineout two minutes later. Just a penalty. The Sharks captain Am observed wryly after the game that his side had not had ‘‘the rub of the green’’.
The Sharks did not have the rub of the green but neither did all the players who were victims of the dangerous tackles. Do you expect any player to be suspended (apart from Tomkinson) for repeated dangerous play as the new ‘protocols’ allow? Do you expect any referee to be stood down?
No, nor do I. It’s a worry. The eight red cards at the World Cup, more than the previous four tournaments combined, changed the game for the better. The Southern Hemisphere officials, with New Zealanders to the fore, are in the process of changing it back again. It’s got to stop. It’s time that Mark Robinson, the new CEO of New Zealand Rugby, used his power and spoke out. This is not about rugby, it’s about health.