Owen Doyle: Referee eyes becoming more blind to foul play

Things are changing rapidly, and will never be the same again. It’s hard to believe that the tournament organisers would ever have envisaged that two South African sides would contest the inaugural final of the United Rugby Championship. And it begs the obvious, if unanswerable, question, how will it all end up next year?

The Stormers beat the Bulls in Cape Town, and while it was extremely exciting for the rival sets of supporters, the match was nothing to write home about. It was pretty dire for the most part, but that can happen in finals.

Full credit, though, to the Stormers for pulling it off, and coach John Dobson has done particularly well with this team, but it took Manie Libbok, who is at best an inconsistent place kicker, to drop the goal that left the Bulls needing a try. Dobson’s late father, Paul, the eminent rugby scholar and writer, would have been immensely proud.

[ Owen Doyle: Wayne Barnes’ loud continuous communication is over the top ]

The Bulls were further hindered by the sin-binning of Cornal Hendricks, a decision which can’t be faulted. Referee Andy Brace was accompanied by two South African assistant referees, plus another, Marius van der Westhuizen, as TMO. All are good men but given URC’s commitment to neutral match officials, it was strange that Brace was not accompanied by his own team of officials. Maybe it was a cost saving measure, in which case it was seriously misplaced, and did not look as professional as it might.

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Jake White, thankfully, is not Rassie Erasmus, and his somewhat confusing post-match comments would have made Brace feel no worse than being savaged by a lamb. I also suspect the coach’s opinion that the referee was outstanding can be taken with a tad more than a pinch of sarcastic salt. There were issues, relevant to both sides around the officiating of the breakdown and the Stormers - if they bother - may well ask questions of their own, including why scrumhalf Herschel Janties was allowed to be taken out when minding his own business, at the back of the ruck. It’s an irrelevance that the offender came through the middle. Easy calls should, and must, be made.

White will undoubtedly use the official channels to point out decision making issues which he felt affected his team, and that is the way it should be.

The question of communication with players was high on my list in this referee performance. First name terms seem to be nothing less than an attempt to create an atmosphere of faux-friendship, which only succeeds in removing the necessary line of authority between the players and the officials. That same comment equally applies to Wayne Barnes in the English Premiership final, a match which developed into little more than a kick-fest, another poor spectacle.

While it also went down to the wire, it didn’t measure up to expectations. But that is not to take away from a great win for a renewed great club, where Leicester coach Steve Borthwick has transformed fortunes in very short order. It took a brilliant drop goal by replacement outhalf, Freddie Burns, to prevent the match going into extra time. It would have been a travesty if Saracens had stolen it; Leicester were better, and their 12 points were made up of two tries and a conversion to Sarries’ 12 from four penalties, when Burns struck his last ditch winner.

The most notable refereeing issue came when Saracen’s scrumhalf, Aled Davies, was sent to the bin for a very hard shoulder to the head of Leicester’s Julian Montaya. He was steeped in luck that it was only for a 10 minute spell - it was a clear red card decision for many. Part of the reasoning for yellow seemed to be around the idea that the ball carrier had the momentum. I’ve no idea what that’s supposed to mean - if the offender is standing still and the ball carrier arrives at pace, it should have no bearing on the decision. Anyway, Barnes decided yellow and the words ‘player welfare’ echoed once more around Twickenham.

Barnes, who may well be the next World Cup final referee if England aren’t there, must look at this and some other inaccuracies which he does need to iron out. Less, needless, communication, and more concentration wouldn’t be a bad idea; and there are quite a few others, who could also usefully apply the same maxim.

Let’s look at what happened just 24 hours later in the Barbarians versus England game. Apart from the fact that Eddie Jones’ team took a thrashing, there was more foul play.

Will Skelton of La Rochelle fame crashed his shoulder into the head of England’s Patrick Schickerling who was not in possession having knocked the ball forward. Skelton’s action looked to be mindless, utterly unacceptable, and exceptionally dangerous. Italian referee Andrea Piardi quite correctly handed out red card and Skelton became the first Barbarian to be sent off in the history of that great club. The wonderful Mickey Steele-Bodger, who gave so much to the Barbarians concept, must surely have turned angrily in his grave.

The judiciary have an easy task with this one, provided they do not allow themselves to get side-tracked, an exemplary sentence is needed. It was an off the ball challenge, and it’s impossible to see how any mitigating defence can be conjured up.

[ Owen Doyle: You cannot depend on the TMO as a referee ]

My recent enough conspiracy theory is proving itself, I’m sorry to say. There appears to be a growing referee approach to do very little in relation to foul play unless the TMO calls it up. The referees’ eyes may becoming blind to foul play.

During the week we learned that World Rugby has formally altered the powers of the TMO, who can now advise the ref whether or not he needs to look at an incident. While the intention behind this has time-saving merit, it is going to give referees more opportunity to ‘not see’ things.

More importantly, it is fully dependent on all TMO’s being totally up to speed on what exactly is what - some are, and some are definitely not. Therein lies the problem.