Probyn: Red-card refs marred Six Nations
Aweek on, with the Six Nations settled and a Scottish win in Paris leaving Wales to claim the title, it was the strangest Championship I have ever seen. It was without doubt, the worst series since the inception of the tournament with virtually all the games being decided by the man in the middle, instead of the players on the field.
With five red cards shown (three for Wayne Barnes alone) added to the number of yellow cards, it seems that either the players had forgotten how to play the game or certain referees have changed how they referee the game.
Even though there has been a wave of slight adjustments because of the head injury action facing the game, it shouldn’t have had the impact on the number of cards given as players have been playing with those law changes for weeks.
Having so many players sent off changes the whole dynamic of the tournament and stops it being a true competition.
Even the last game was decided by Wayne Barns opting not to use the TMO to check what was an obvious double movement from Scotland’s Duhan van der Merwe for his first try. This was decisive in their victory.
Across the competition the standard of officiating was awful and lacked consistency by all concerned, including the TMO who sometimes ‘guided’ the referee to re-examine an incident while other times made no comment at all.
There were also efforts by the officials on the pitch to try to influence the TMO by announcing an on-field decision before asking for various incidents to be reviewed.
Three of the players sent off were in games against Wales which obviously helped their campaign and may account for their success in winning the tournament but that still doesn’t explain why England performed so badly.
Unfortunately, the protracted Six Nations and Autumn Internationals last season did nothing to help prepare England for this tournament and winning both probably didn’t help either. Add into that the enforced ‘rest’ of the Saracens contingent and you can see how a slow start could easily slip into disaster.
After those wins I think Eddie Jones may have become a little complacent particularly given the ease of England’s Autumn win apart from the final. One thing’s for sure, after the fall-out of this Six Nations he will be far more focused going forward and with the possibility of again adding Sam Underhill to his back row, we should see an improved team performance.
It has been interesting to see how others have perceived the events
“Across the competition the officiating was awful and lacked consistency”
and some have looked to the past in the hope of finding answers.
Stephen Jones in the Sunday Times chose to use Clive Woodward as an example of a coach who focused purely on each game as opposed to Jones who, he says, seems focused only on World Cups.
He wrote that England’s World Cup win came from Woodward’s philosophy of concentrating solely and completely on the next game, trying to win it in any way possible.
Although this sounds admirable, it is not strictly true as when Woodward was questioned after losing the Five Nations game against Wales in 1999 he said, “Don’t judge me on the Five Nations, judge me on the World Cup.”
This would seem to indicate that he had rightly been using the Five Nations games as part of the build up to the World Cup that year and not just focusing on each game individually.
However, losing 44-21 in the quarter-final ended the World Cup dream for that year. But with Woodward allowed to take his team forward, in the next four years they managed to win 31 of 35 games including a Grand Slam on the road to that 2003 World Cup win.
During that four-year journey Woodward established a combination of very good players that didn’t alter very much. This was what eventually created his downfall after that World Cup win. As players left or were replaced in the England team, his chosen replacements failed to deliver the wins needed for him to stay, so he stood down as head coach.
Woodward’s last international coaching role was as the head coach of the disastrous 2005 Lions tour of New Zealand, which, despite taking 45 players and 29 assistant coaches, the Lions lost 3-0, after which he left rugby to become a media pundit.
Every coach, just as every player wants to win every game but in order to do so a coach has to take a slightly longer term view. If they didn’t they would be changing the team virtually every week and probably losing lots of games.
Good coaches try to create a balance that mixes established players with new players, so that the team that wins today can win tomorrow and the next day.
Eddie Jones has often named new players in his squads but for some reason, which I assume could be how they perform in training, doesn’t cap all.
However, given the disruption of this season and the eclectic manner in which the Six Nations were officiated, it would be unethical to pass all the blame or credit onto the coaches for results gained purely by the actions of the referees, rather than how the teams have performed.