Kaplan is man with a plan for broken scrum
ENGLISH referee Wayne Barnes left me and the majority of the crowd watching Glasgow Warriors’ European Cup defeat to Toulouse baffled by some of his decisions.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t the first and certainly won’t be the last official to leave everybody scratching their heads at some of his calls.
The inconsistency of officials is becoming such a problem worldwide that one of the greatest refs ever, Jonathan Kaplan, has decided enough is enough.
The South African (right) has demanded that governing body World Rugby appoint an overall ‘referee coach’ to se t down clearer guidelines for the men in the middle to follow, especially at the scrum.
And about time. There are too many different referee supervisors in every rugbyplaying country who obviously have their own take on how the set-piece should be officiated.
That means confused players and coaches have to work out what bugs each individual ref at the scrum. Kaplan believes some officials don’t do enough homework on the way teams scrum and simply go on past reputations at the set-piece.
For example, if a team had built a reputation as a good scrummaging side they would get the benefit of the doubt even if they were breaking the rules. Kaplan felt that happened with England during the Autumn Tests when they got away with murder at the set-piece.
‘Sometimes I think these referees do not do the greatest preparation because, if they did, they would have been able to easily pick up on some of the tactics that teams like England use,’ said Kaplan. ‘Sometimes you have to make unpopular decisions but that’s really why we are paid to do what we do. If the refs had a coach and he identified tactics that players and teams were using, I think it would have impacted on decision-making.’ Better-briefed refs could cut down on all the foul play and wasted time at the scrum. In days gone by, the set- piece was a pushing contest with the ball going in and coming out pretty quickly. Nowadays, it is the most boring part of rugby and can be used to slow a game down.
According to the SRU refereeing guidelines for domestic rugby, the offi ci al must not attempt to ‘de-power’ a dominant scrum. Fair enough, but even the strongest pack of forwards are not going to be squeaky clean.
Every individual scrum has to be officiated on its merits but the only way that will happen is if there is one set of worldwide rules and whistlers do their homework.