CrapRefs.com

Missing a blatant knock on at a crucial moment in the game is one thing but grossly inconsistent calls at the breakdown, missed forward passes, 2 distinct offside lines, no call for players not retiring from a chip through and a general one-sided sway to the whole performance puts non-neutral refereeing in doubt.

I have had indifferent motivation to continue this blog. It gets boring slagging off referees all the time and they quite often deserve recognition that probably don’t get but Stu Dickinson has pushed me back into action after watching his one-sided handling of the Reds v Crusaders Super Rugby match tonight.

The Crusaders do cheat a fair bit – no doubt about it. Like the dominating Auckland teams in the late 80s, they pushed the boundaries at every turn. But the Crusaders are usually pretty smart about it. They get pinged a couple of times and tend to cut it out.

This is what Richie McCaw would have thought he did from half time in this match but the penalty count at the breakdown continued.

Predisposed bias?
Coaches and media try to influence the way referees adjudicate a match by highlighting different aspects of opponent’s play they believe to be illegal. They do this in the build up to a game.

Richie McCaw is the type of player likely to be singled out in these kinds of situation. He is a masterful player

Stu Dickinson appeared to have predetermined a lot of calls in this match. He deemed Crusaders players to be cheating before they had the oportunity to do so.

He seemed distracted by this aspect – so much so that he missed several forward passes and a blatant knock on by the Reds late in the game. The Reds took the advantage and eventually kicked a penalty 3 rucks later.

This was not a clinical Crusaders but any stretch of the imagination. They made a lot of basic mistakes and pushed a lot of passes they shouldn’t have but they did tighten up. They retained possession when it counted toward the end of the matcj and they took their opportunity with 3 mi utes to play.

Todd Blackadder and his Crusaders can feel justly aggrieved with this result.

But what about the rules?

Invictus tells the story of the South African rugby team at the 1995 World Cup focusing on the political and social situation in South Africa.

Matt Damon plays one of the focal characters Springbok captain, Francois Pienaar.

When Damon was asked if he knew how to play the game, he said
“it seemed to me like just kind of kill the man with the ball and then they all drink beer afterwards”

(30sec mark of this review, after the 30sec of advertisements – sorry)

The Houston Press has a review of the movie that includes some interesting and funny insights to describe aspects of the game to people who don’t know anything about it.

Being an ex-prop, I especially loved the scrum description

“The Scrum
The scrum serves the same purpose as a face-off in hockey, or a tip-off in basketball. The fattest eight people on each team huddle together — three in front, four in the middle, and one in back. Then they push against the fattest eight people from the opposing side. Someone throws the ball into the middle of this. Each team then tries to kick it backward to their side.”

It’s these bits that should raise concerns for how to sell our game to a broader audience:

“We assumed the basics would be covered as the movie went along, but, aside from the mention that all passes must be thrown backward, no real explanation came as players packed into man-mash-ups on the field, randomly kicked balls through uprights and threw each other into the air.

[]

Penalties
Can be for lots of things — not releasing the ball after getting tackled; tackling too high; throwing a punch; touching the ball during a ruck before a bird can shit on it. Penalties play a big role in the final game of Invictus, because, true to history, the only scoring comes from kicks. In the movie, the refs don’t explain which penalties are being called. But that’s why the teams keep getting those free kicks.”

And this was the 1995 version!

[This one's been done to death I know but I had drafted the following without publishing it but meaning to. Given the subsequent discussion on the About page - I'll post it now anyway if for no other reason than to have at least one embarrassed Kiwi call it like it is]

This was weird …

Referee boss Paddy O’Brien openly slagged off  Stu Dickinson for his performance in the test match between the All Blacks and Italy.

“If the referee is not accurate we have got to put our hand up. We need to educate that referee and get him better because that scrummaging on Saturday was not up to international standard.”

I agree with the first part and it was refreshing to see O’Brien finally saying something about his referee’s performances.

Australian rugby league referees get criticised and stood down by their bosses when they screw up but unlike the IRB, they seem to try and do something (effective) about it.

In the 4th game of last year’s baseball World Series, the 3rd base umpire Tim McLelland made 2 shocking calls during the game. He fronted at the press conference afterward and explained himself:

“in my heart I thought he left too soon, but the replay showed he didn’t. Then on the second one, it showed that Cano was off the bag when he was tagged. … I did not see that for whatever reason. So obviously, I missed both calls. I was just out there trying to do my job. And unfortunately there was by instant replay two missed calls”

A personal response for human error. He got it badly wrong – he faced the media (and hence the fans) and apologised.

There can be some closure this way. What other way is there when you have screwed up and everybody knows it?

What do we get?

Anti-All Black sentiment because Bryce Lawrence gets special treatment and Stu Dickinson gets singled out unfairly. Oh, and the slight angst of Springbok, Lions and Australian fans who think they have been hard done by.

O’Brien is not known for publicly criticising his referees. He was a police detective before going full time with the whistle and up until now has always acted like New Zealand’s internal affairs police spokesmen Greg O’Connor when speaking publicly about performance matters – completely backing his men.

I whole-heartedly agree with the last part - the scrummaging was definitely not up to International standard - Tialata was pitiful!

This was the weird bit: “We need to educate that referee and get him better”

I’m no fan of Dickinson but to choose this moment to comment on a refereeing performance is surprising for several reasons:

1. O’Brien was so clearly wrong. Tialata was outclassed – simple as that. He had no answer to a superior scrummager.
2. He publicly supported Bryce Lawrence for his poor performance in the first Lions test, in particular around his adjudication of the scrum when the Beast cheated like hell!
3. Why pick on Dickinson when there were a pethora of poor refereeing performances to chose from – especially around the scrum (Lawrence and Joubert in the 1st Bledisloe Cup test for starters)?
   Dickinson wasn’t to blame for a poor spectacle here – the All Blacks should hold their hand up for that

A careful examination of the scrum exchanges in the first half of the first test shows that the Springbok loose head prop was pushing upwards and inwards at every opportunity.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sore on Mtawarira. In fact, as an ex-prop, I applaud his tactics in the vain of ‘if you can get away with it …’ but he more than got away with it, he ran off laughing with penalties galore from a completely incompetent referee.

Perhaps Lawrence was using Craig Joubert’s performance in the first Bledisloe Cup test as a yardstick (tough on Al Baxter).

From a propping viewpoint, the surprising aspect was not that Bryce Lawrence didn’t ping him for it – Lawrence has no clue about scrummaging – it was that such a vastly experienced (and good-sized) prop in Phil Vickery could not effectively counter-act the strategy.

He did so on 1-2 occasions, approaching the scrum-hit in a downwards direction, allowing him to get on top of his opposite to hold him down, not letting him get upward leverage.

Mtawarira was very effective in getting his head in the middle of Vickery’s chest and driving him upwards with considerable strength.

I’m unsure whether Adam Jones is a better prop than Phil Vickery. He was certainly able to combat the Beast where the Englishman could not but often these kinds of exchanges come down to levels of comfort that one prop can get over another. Sometimes a guy will struggle against one prop and be very comfortable against all others.

This may have been the case for Vickery.

There was so much noise about the scrum following the first test but very little of it was insightful. Unfortunately Graham Roundtree remained silent when he was probably the most qualified to provide a sober assessment – certainly more than referee boss Paddy O’Brien.

Perhaps the biggest tell-tale sign was that it took Chtistophe Berdot just one scrum to stamp out the shenanigans in the front row. He penalised the Beast in the first exchange and that was the end of it – clear evidence that Berdot at least did not agree with Lawrence’s reading of the situation.

All but extinct in the Southern Hemisphere, we noticed some light rucking is being allowed in the Northern Hemisphere – a refreshingly pragmatic way of speeding up play at ruck time.

Leicester v Northampton was a classic battle between a marauding tight five with a completely dominant scrum (Leicester) up against a dynamic, tough loose trio with dangerous outsides (Northampton).

The refereeing was excellent from Dave Pearson. A couple of things stood out in particular.

1. A bit of rucking was allowed (players helping opponents to roll away from rucks);
2. Pearson didn’t feel compelled to single players out after a minor fight; and
3. The Liecester wing was not penalised for tackling a player on the ground when he chased a kick through that was gathered by the opponent

I often cringe in anticipation of extremely soft penalties when the letter of the law wins out over common sense – in situations where no-one is fouled or disadvantaged by opponents’ actions despite the fact that a law may have been fractured.

In the all-Ireland Magner’s League clash between Ulster v Munster, referee Alain Rolland also allowed players to ‘assist’ their opponents to roll away from the base of rucks where they found themselves on the wrong side.

Irish International Referee Alain Rolland

Other positives about this performance included

• Delaying blowing the whistle before awarding Munster’s second try
  Rolland waited until he had a view that confirmed his notion that a try had been scored
• Awarding a sensible (but not excessive) yellow card for a player recklessly impeding an opponent in the air when he was taking a catch from an up and under
  [Similar to Craig Joubert's level-headed ruling in the All Blacks v Australia test in Tokyo where NZ wing Sitivini Sivivatu followed through on his opponent and got the yellow card he deserved]

Hopefully we are seeing a more pragmatic reading of the rucking laws. It can take a lot longer to wait for players to get themselves onside or to remove players through less traditional means.

Semi-Final #1 Canterbury v Hawkes Bay

Referee Jonathon White had a good game here. The game flowed, White went largely unnoticed and when required to act, he did so with a level head.

This was exemplified with the common sense decision around a potentially dangerous tackle that saw the tackled player’s legs being lifted up beyond 90 degrees.

Hawkes Bay were struggling to compete and would certainly have been devastated by the loss of their Tongan international prop, Sona Taumalolo had the letter of the law been adhered to and he been sin-binned.

White sought the feedback of his linesman Keith Brown (pictured below) who calmly and accurately recounted what happened – Taumalolo lifted the legs up in a potentially dangerous motion but then took care to put his opponent down without injury.

New Zealand referee, Keith Brown

White indicated he was going for a ‘penalty only’ and Brown concurred.

White, Brown and sideline assessor, Vinny Munroe have all come along in their refereeing as has Wellington’s Garrett Williamson.

Light at the end of the tunnel for New Zealand referees.

Jonathon White is training to be a surgeon and so we may not see him for much longer but hopefully the returning Glen Jackson has some promise with the whistle.

This wasn’t a pretty game. There were a lot of very basic ball-handling errors on a clear, dry evening in Tauranga.

The referee, Nathan Pearce, was from Australia and had a large panel of assessor-types watching him from the sideline.

He had some interesting interpretations at the breakdown, seemingly favouring the team in possession over that trying to steal it. There appeared to be moments when the defender was in correct position where other NPC referees would tend to award him the penalty for the tackled player not releasing the ball but Pearce tended to go the other way.

Bay of Plenty were penalised heavily in the exchanges and at one point had 2 men in the sin bin but the Australian was consistent even though he dished out a lot of penalties.

Also, Kudos to him for not sending off Bay of Plenty captain Colin Bourke for punching after a scuffle with Tasman lock Joe Wheeler.

Three in the bin

The only real downside was the disallowing of a significant try. Bay of Plenty would have gotten a bonus point from the game had the try been allowed and it certainly looked legitimate.

There have been numerous occasions where referees have gotten this wrong this season.

The NZRFU has conveniently decided to do away with video referees to save a buck (apparently $20,000 or so). Apparently that money isn’t going to a lineout coach for the All Blacks so where is it going that’s so important for the game of rugby in new Zealand?

They are dumping 4 teams from the NPC premier division at the end of the season. These tries could prove significant in terms of who finishes in the bottom four spots.

The NZRFU have an answer to that: ‘It won’t necessarily be the teams who place in the bottom four this season’.

Their get out of jail free card is that in being impartial (and making sure none of the major unions go down) they have a multi-pronged criteria and are applying it – retrospectively – over the last 4 years. Wouldn’t want Auckland, Waikato or Otago to miss out.

On the other side of the ‘no video referees’ decision is the potential earnings loss (and fans disappointment) for a team who would have otherwise earned a home semi-final (and/or) final due to mistakes or unsighted-ness  on the field – not really good enough in a slomo-replay, wireless broadband, real time everything, sky digital world!

The New Zealand NPC rugby competition has seen changes in the way matches are adjudicated. The main differences are:

1. Tackling
   Any tackle that somehow finds it way to the upper chest is deemed ‘high’
   Any tackle that involves lifting a player’s legs, no mater how high or whether there is no potential danger is deemed, ‘dangerous’
    
2. Tackled ball
   The tackler is able to continue to hold onto the ball in the post-tackle, ruck
   
   
3. TMO
   In a cost-saving exercise, there are no video referees at NPC matches.

This last one represents the most significant, especially this year.

In theory, this heralds a return to the amateur era, where referees made calls from what they could see, with some help from their linesmen.

However, the controlling body has declared that 4 teams will drop out of the NPC top flight at the end of this season.

The determining factor is not going to be performance alone but it will have a bearing. The issue here is that human error could see a crucial decisions go the wrong way and have a determining influence on a team’s fate.

While it didn’t affect the outcome, in the 3rd round, Wellington were awarded a try against the Bay of Plenty that was clearly not a try. Bay of Plenty are in the mix to be one of the 4 teams to be dropped.

People’s jobs are on the line here and the NZRFU choose this year to act all prudent.

Wellington had a try disallowed in their Ranfurly Shield match with Auckland last week. It was a clear try and the referee seemed to ask his linesmen the wrong question (‘Did you see it?’ rather than ‘Is there a reason why I can’t award it?’). The try as under the posts and so Wellington were denied 7 points in a match that was decided by just 3 points.

In the first 2 rounds I was happy with the decisions being made around the awarding of tries but in the close-up, slow-motion replay, satellite TV world we live in, the NZRFU should find other ways to tighten their belts.

TV commentators are talking as if referees have made it clear which laws were being focused o for this year’s New Zealand National Provincial Championship (NPC) but no-one told us – the paying public.

And it doesn’t seem like the players have been all that well versed with the high amount of penalties being awarded during matches.

If this was America, there would have been an effective marketing job prior to the kick off of the first game to ensure everybody knew how things were going to go.

Diagrams would have been drawn with appropriate animations to clearly illustrate the law, the current interpretation and then how it was going to be played for this competition – and why.

That way the fans would be more informed, more sympathetic and could even provide productive feedback.

But that’s not how it went in New Zealand’s premier rugby competition.

Rugby’s laws are complicated enough without introducing experimental variations for one competition and then reverting back to old laws for mid-year internationals.

Then later the same year, introducing new ways of interpreting laws around the ruck and mall.

These include:

Tackle Safety

• Any tackle that starts high (over shoulder, neck, head) is ruled ‘head high’ [and penalised] regardless of where the tackle ends up
• Any tackle that involves lifting a player to a point where the tackled player’s legs get to an angle where they are parallel to the ground is ruled ‘dangerous’ [and penalised] 

The wallabies started very well but they were always going to need the close calls to go their way if they were going to remain in the hunt against the home side in great form.

But the close calls did not go their way. Referee Allain Rolland was particularly aggressive at ruck time, giving the benefit of the doubt to the attacking side and on occasion, the home side.

Matt Giteau’s brain explosion pretty much sealed the Australian’s fate however.

The lack of further discipline has some Springbok fans crying foul but I think the record of the players should be considered. Which player is always seen entering frays both before and after the whistle has been blown?

Hard to imagine Matt Gitteau pushing people around like Bakkies Botha seems to think is his role and right.

Richard Brown was a little unfortunate, having been the tackler who grabbed the ball in the post-tackle but Allain Rolland ruled that the ruck had formed – a 50/50 call.

These kinds of calls have a huge impact on the tone of the game at the time. On another day, Brown could have been a hero, turning over the ball when the Springboks were in full flight, giving a potential counter-attacking opportunity for the sprightly Wallaby back line.

George Smith on the other hand deserved his yellow card for a cynical move at the ruck, reaching through interfering with half back, DuPreez.

Rolland had well and truly set the seen at ruck time and so there can be no argument with this call.

Overall, the Australians didn’t help themselves. They didn’t adjust to Rolland’s reading of the game to remain competitive at the breakdown.