“I don’t care if they’re all brilliant, or all bloody awful, but please, I just want them to be all the same.”
That was the heartfelt plea from a top elite coach, made to me all of 15 years ago. He was looking for the one key thing that referees must deliver – consistency. And here we are now, only months away from the Rugby World Cup, and it’s a case of plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Over the weekend we saw a heck of a lot of decision variety in the key areas of the game – the scrum, the breakdown, foul play, and we can throw the penalty try law into the mix as well.
Let’s start with a real bone of contention – Bulls v Stormers, refereed by Jaco Peyper.
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I suggest you read this slowly. The Bulls’ Cyle Brink took out an attacker as the latter was waiting for a try scoring pass. The referee correctly yellow carded Brink, but mysteriously did not award a penalty try. Peyper informed us that while the take out action was, per se, illegal, Brink could not be removed from the decision-making equation. This meant, apparently and ridiculously, that the player could have chosen a legitimate option in order to prevent the score, hence no penalty try. Crazy stuff, just crazy.
That rationale cannot survive any sort of rugby logic. It was nonsensical, devoid of common sense, and, as it came from one of the most experienced referees on the planet, it demands clarification. Peyper is a really smart guy, and I don’t believe he pulled this decision out of thin air. So I have a horrid, sneaking feeling, that this is very unwise tinkering with the laws.
The relevant law is simplicity itself: “A penalty try is awarded if foul play by the opposition prevents a probable try from being scored, or scored in a better position.”
Unsurprisingly, there is no provision for the rationale presented by the referee in this instance, so please, gentlemen, do not invent one, do not complicate the uncomplicated. Your job is difficult enough, and are you outside your brief introducing what amounts to law amendments, be it this one, or the intentional knock forward?
If Peyper’s approach was ever deemed to be correct we will see all sorts of illegality preventing probable tries, with the perpetrator achieving his aim of preventing a score with no fear of a penalty try, because he could have chosen to execute a legitimate option. Talk about skating on the very thinnest of ice.
Conversely, if Peyper had denied the penalty try because he considered there was defensive cover, I might still not have agreed with him, but would have understood his decision.
Glasgow v Munster produced a match of brutal intensity and injury. It was a great, if imperfect, win for the men in red. It also gave us the best referee of the weekend, the Italian, Andrea Piardi. His game knowledge, decisiveness and well reasoned communication stands him in good stead.
Piardi did not hang about when it came to dishing out a nailed on red card to Glasgow’s Tom Jordan, for a shoulder to head upright tackle on Conor Murray, whose resulting injury saw him leave the field. Once again, the prime motive of the tackler was to prevent the pass, and as long as the witless judicial mitigations continue, so too will these tackles.
The other tight match of the weekend, Ulster v Connacht, thankfully saw another good refereeing performance, this time from Andy Brace. The Connacht backrow totally outplayed their Ulster counterparts, and Brace rewarded poachers with a consistent approach.
Although there were occasions when the poacher, getting his hands to the ball, did not appear to support his own body weight, the referee came out of the encounter very well. Ulster have only their own performance to blame for this damaging home defeat.
Leinster v Sharks saw a referee performance which was not so good. It didn’t really matter a whole lot, the home team were in total control and their passage to the semi-final couldn’t have been smoother.
Welshman Craig Evans has yet to show that he is up to speed for this level, and some scrum and breakdown refereeing left me scratching my head. He’s a pleasant young man, and if he realises that he has significant work to do, then he can approach next season with a different game plan.
The yellow card for Shark’s Makazole Mapimpi, for a tackle on Caelen Doris, as Doris went over to score, was severe. Sure, it was maybe technically correct, buy it did no damage whatsoever to the Leinsterman. There must be some level of leeway for the referee, instead of being bound up by precision protocols – a severe word to the offender would have been a more appropriate decision.
World Rugby’s elite referee manager, the very capable Joël Jutge, has a job on his hands to prepare his team of officials for the World Cup. He will undoubtedly target that elusive consistency, and hopefully he’ll prevail. And please, no law tinkering from the referees.
