Sunday in Sandy Park, Mathieu Raynal was the man in the middle for Exeter v Munster. Having turned around a seemingly impossible position (13-24), the home team led 27-24, the clock was winding down fast.
Conor Murray threw a pass to the short side. Was he trying to hit the retreating, offside Exeter players? Even if he was, that doesn’t cancel out the offence, and a penalty here would have been easier to give, than not to give. In the event the ball was plucked out of the air by Exeter’s Henry Slade who, seconds later, touched down. Now there was no way back for Munster.
TMO Cédric Marchat, offering some hope, asked Raynal to check if Slade had come from an offside position. He was very clearly onside, and the score, on that basis, stood. But neither the TMO nor the referee had bothered to check out those retreating lazy runners, a penalty to Munster would have given them a last-gasp chance to turn the tables.
The TMO’s job is to advise the referee of clear and obvious infringements in the lead up to a try. By no stretch of the imagination did Slade’s positioning come near to meeting the criteria, so Marchat should really have stayed silent on this one. On the other hand he definitely needed to speak up about the retreating players. Additionally, the referee, badly placed in the nine-10 channel, couldn’t have had much of a view of things for himself. One way or another, the try should have been ruled out.
Munster, too, got away with a non-intervention when, as half-time approached, a no-arms defensive tackle avoided any scrutiny, with a penalty try for Exeter in the probable column.
In general, we heard too much TMO input over the weekend, and we have to wonder what’s going on, the role is not supposed to be so dominant. There has been a lot of talk about limiting their involvement, which we’d all like to see, to infringements in the actual act of scoring, and, of course, foul play.
Some referees would clearly be lost without a near constant flow of advice coming in from the TMO. There seems be a hunt on for unattainable perfection, and perhaps that’s partly down to the coach’s post-match detailed dissection of the referee’s performance.
The difficulty in finding the right TMO balance was emphasised in Leinster’s match against Sale. Referee Pierre Brousset got two bits of information which, to all the world, looked as if they were unnecessary intrusions.
Firstly, the eagle-eyed TMO, Denis Grenouillet, had noticed Robbie Henshaw pulling on the arm of Telusa Veainu as the latter waited for a potential scoring pass. It took two minutes for the ref to reach his decision, saying it was cynical and he yellow-carded Henshaw. The card was severe, but, having given it, then the possibility of a penalty try needed to be considered, which it wasn’t.
Next up, Ryan Baird lost possession just moments before Josh van der Flier touched down.
This was not the most clear and obvious of knock-ons, but was spotted by Grenouillet, and the try disallowed. If Brousset hadn’t blindsided himself by being completely in the wrong position, he would have been well able to judge it himself, but, having no view whatsoever, help was needed.
An important point in all of this that it’s a huge challenge to rewrite the TMO script. It’s a severe case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t, the horns of a near-impossible dilemma.
However, immediate steps can be taken so that the protocol is followed, and not pushed past its limits, as it was in the World Cup final when Aaron Smith’s try was disallowed for a knock-on which was five phases before the score. TMOs who go outside the protocols in this way excuse it by saying that they got the right result, so it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, but I disagree. The constant input should also be a simple instructional fix.
There is another vexed problem: more than the two phases allowed can happen in very quick succession close to the goal line, meaning that the TMO can’t intervene for a prior infringement. In contrast, a length of the pitch attacking move involving multiple passes and only one breakdown phase, does allow for intervention. And that, even for a minuscule knock-on at the beginning of the move, can cancel out an otherwise wonderful score.
Leinster put in a strange, uncharacteristic first half performance, with Sale ‘seconds’ team gaining a lot of admirers for their willingness to play expansively, ignoring the reputation of the home team. Leinster were ill-disciplined and seemed to scrummage for penalties, which isn’t their usual modus operandi. At the risk of incurring the wrath of Andrew Porter’s many fans, it was hard to agree with Brousset’s decisions in his favour, the prop’s angle of drive can tend to be across the scrum. I’m not sure he’ll get away with it when the Six Nations comes around.
Business as usual was restored in the second half, Leinster finishing up with a facile enough victory. With La Rochelle having lost both their opening matches, Leinster’s progression may just have been eased a little, but Toulouse, so brilliant against Harlequins, prove that there is no easy passage. Despite the way the competition is structured, it is compelling. For all its quirks, we should just enjoy it.
