FROM THE BLINDSIDE:I SEE Romain Poite will referee the Munster versus Northampton game this weekend. Sometimes certain teams and certain referees just rub each other up the wrong way and although things have improved over the years, they were bad right from the start between this particular team and this particular referee.

Munster just got off on the wrong foot altogether with Monsieur Poite. He refereed the All Blacks game in 2008, got a few things wrong that night and the fans got on his back from the word go. And then he and Paul O’Connell had a strained relationship for a while which was very unusual because Paul’s demeanour with referees is always quite calm and respectful. But Poite sin-binned him against Northampton a couple of years ago at Thomond Park and that annoyed people too.

I always found him to be a bit spiky and I felt he had a bit of a short fuse. That probably sounds a bit rich coming from me of all people, but the truth is that sort of attitude in a referee never helps the game. Good referees learn how to adapt to the players they’re reffing, they learn how to control them and have a relationship with them. I never held it against a referee for getting a decision wrong but when they had a really dismissive attitude towards players, that’s when I got annoyed.

Poite has definitely changed over the past couple of seasons – he’s calmer now and isn’t as sharp or as short when players ask him something. He had a very frustrating habit of waving players away without explanation when he started off but you see that less and less in him now.

Munster will prepare for him this weekend but no more than they would for any other referee. It’s important to understand the referee you’re going to have in your next game. Video analysts draw up reports and players get told all sorts of things to look out for. What way he refs the game, what way he likes the breakdown to go, which penalties he usually calls, which ones he sometimes lets go, after how many phases he likes to call a penalty, how long he plays advantage. All that stuff is given to the players beforehand.

At the top end of the game, there isn’t a huge difference in style from referee to referee. Where they differ most is in temperament. How they handle the players, how patient they are, how much dialogue they allow. Some referees don’t like to interact at all, some of them are okay with a bit of back and forth. Some of them have shorter fuses than the players, which doesn’t help anybody.

Captains have to be able to talk to a referee. Equally, he has to be able to talk to both captains without feeling disrespected or intimidated. This is key because what you’re aiming for as a captain is to get the better of the 50-50 decisions for your team. Most decisions made on a rugby pitch are clear-cut but it’s the ones where there’s a little bit of doubt involved that playing the referee becomes important.

You have to be calm and be able to put pressure on him without him feeling like he isn’t in control. Mick Galwey was the master of this kind of thing. He had a brilliant way of talking to referees – calm, clear, precise, never threatening. Referees very rarely had to tell him to go away or get back and leave them alone. He was careful not to question every penalty but picked his spot and timed it usually to perfection.

Referees don’t want to explain every single decision and Gaillimh made sure not to get in their faces too often.

Referees come into the dressingroom before a game and set out their stall. They tell everybody what they’ll be looking out for, what they won’t tolerate. After a while, they sort of say the same thing each time.

Joel Jutge was a referee Munster happened to have quite a bit for a number of years and when he’d come into our dressingroom, he’d make sure to talk to three people specifically. He’d tell Peter Stringer not to be waving his arms around at ruck-time, trying to draw attention to the other team killing the ball. He’d tell Ronan O’Gara not to be always shouting at him from the outhalf position. And then he’d tell me not to be always getting on to him and to not be getting involved all the time.

Everybody seemed to find this hilarious but it pissed me off after a while. I hated the idea that referees would be going in with a pre-conceived idea of what sort of player I was.

But I didn’t always help myself. I was too boisterous, too questioning sometimes and it came back to bite me.

Over time I learned how to deal with referees the hard way. I’d give away cheap penalties or get 10 yards given against me and that would be bad enough. But then I’d end up with a yellow card and it would be far worse.

When I was in the zone, I was a bit mad on the rugby field. I’d get so driven and so full of desire to win and I definitely got fired up too much at times.

The worst thing that could happen to me in that state of mind would be for a referee to be really short with me. If I felt a referee was talking down to me, it would just drive me even more mad.

A friend of mine, Johnny Lacey, is a referee now and I’m always telling him that the best way to deal with the hotheads on the pitch is just to be straight with them and calm with them.

Johnny used to play with Munster so he knows I know what I’m talking about. I always responded well to a referee who said, “Okay Quinny, calm down.” Or, “Yeah, okay, I understand.” Something like that always just flicked a switch with me and I’d let it go straight away. Because in the heat of battle, it’s not actually the decision you’re questioning. It’s more that you want a bit of interaction, you want to feel like you’re getting a 50-50 break on the penalty count.

You want to feel there’s a sense of fairness in the game, especially if you’re a blindside like I was who is constantly trying to get your hands on the ball.

Backrow guys will always be in amongst it, trying to get turnovers and if you feel like you’re being penalised more than the opposition’s backrow, that’s when you get disheartened. You need to feel one of these decisions is going to go your way, even one you don’t deserve.

All of that is totally dependent on your relationship with the referee. If he’s being constantly short with you, if he’s waving you away the whole time, then you’re going to have the attitude that this guy isn’t going to give us a thing all day.

I know I was a lunatic on the pitch sometimes but when a referee was calm with me, I was always better behaved.

Still, I had my run-ins. Plenty of them. Back in 2000, I got yellow cards two games in a row in the Heineken Cup. We beat Castres away one week and then beat Bath in Thomond Park a week later and I’d been sin-binned in both games.

The following week, I was summoned after training in Cork. Declan Kidney, Jerry Holland and Gaillimh were one side of the desk and I was the other. I couldn’t look Gaillimh in the eye even though he was sitting about three feet away. I was afraid I’d burst out laughing and Deccie was in no mood for it. They laid it down for me. Any more yellow cards and I would be fined. They never said how much but they were deadly serious about it.

The yellow cards hadn’t been for foul play, they’d been for breakdown offences that were totally avoidable. I got the message. Believe it or not, I was never sin-binned in the Heineken Cup again.

Staying on the right side of the referee was something I always had to battle with but I worked on it and tried to take the emotion out of it as much as I could. Emotion never helps referees and any time they’re judged on an incident where emotions are running high, they’ll rarely come out well from it.

You only have to look at the World Cup to see that. Alain Rolland was pilloried for red-carding Sam Warburton in the semi-final even though he was right in what he did.

The three guys on ITV – Martyn Williams, François Pienaar and Lawrence Dallaglio – all reacted by saying it was a terrible decision and that the referee had ruined the game. It wasn’t until a day later that Pienaar changed his mind. The emotion had gone out of the situation a bit by then, of course.

Even with the passing of time, some people don’t forget and they don’t forgive either. Wayne Barnes got terrible abuse from New Zealanders after the France game in 2007 and still wouldn’t be a big favourite down there. Nigel Owens got a barrage of abuse from Samoans after their defeat to South Africa in Auckland – especially from the Gloucester centre Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu who went on Twitter and accused him of being not just biased but a racist as well. It was outrageous stuff and he had to apologise for it and take it back pretty quickly.

This stuff can get badly out of hand. Bryce Lawrence refereed the game between South Africa and Australia at the World Cup and now says he won’t ever referee in South Africa again because he can’t be sure of his personal safety.

Even somebody as experienced as South Africa’s John Smit had a go at him when he announced his retirement, saying the one positive of not playing the game anymore would be not being reffed by Bryce Lawrence.

These referees all got plenty wrong in those games but that shouldn’t matter. You have to take emotion out of it and admit that they were doing what they thought was right at the time.

I had countless run-ins with referees when I was playing but I always got on really well with them off the field. You have to be able to separate it and leave it behind you.

Again, this must sound pretty ironic coming from me but then again who better to say it?

I look back now and see that at the time, I didn’t realise how important it was to play the referee. I should have been smarter and calmer with them, the momentum of games could have been changed if I had.

Discipline is so important – not so much staying out of punch-ups or whatever but more keeping your penalty count down and keeping your relationship with the referee in a good place. He’s the man with the whistle, he’s the man with the power and he can punish you if he feels disrespected.

As the years went on, I became quite friendly with a few of the referees. I came to understand what they were looking for and maybe some of them came around to me.

As long as they gave off the impression that they were willing to give an even break, I was happy to leave them alone and get on with the game.

Mind you, I can’t imagine many of them miss me.