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.

Jackson refereed at a junior level before leaving New Zealand for a 5 year stint at the North London club.

He refereed at lower club level while in England and has just turned pro upon his return to New Zealand where he will join the professional refereeing ranks there.

Jackson was a solid fly half with excellent kicking skills who won New Zealand’s Ranfurly Shield with Bay of Plenty and played for the Waikato Chiefs in the Super12. He also played for NZ Maori.

In a recent interview, Jackson admitted that he was (and remains) ‘a bit lippy’ on the field and that he could face a challenge dealing with players who have similar habits.

But he was confident that he could bring some insights to the occasionally messy ruck situation.

Jackson’s ‘switch to the dark side’ has been hailed as a great move.

Getting former top line players into refereeing happened in other sports (like Cricket) but was very rare in rugby, where professional players tend to move into business, rugby-related and other personal-brand type careers (TV, agents, coaches, business owners, etc).

We will be watching Jackson’s development with interest.

Australian referee Peter Marshall says that “The big issue for players and coaches is consistency between the referees from the three countries.”

No Sh!t.

The theory is fine but it’s got to go further than that. What if they all refereed like Matt Goddard?

That would give you consistency and a huge drop-off in viewership.

Clone Jonathan Kaplan and we’re fine.

NZ’s best referee is/was Kelvin Deaker but we don’t see him out there any more.

South Africa had Andre Watson before Kaplan.

CrapRefs.com recommendations

1. Agree on who the best referees are (past and present)
   [there aren't that many so it isn't that difficult]
2. Work out why the best referees are retiring/moving on early and see if they can be persuaded to stay; and
3. Analyse the performance of these referees; and
4. Use the results as the basis for the consistency that is so clearly needed
   • Get them to appoint the ‘Sanzar Referee Manager’
   • Get them to mentor the new interns by passing on the wisdom they have gained about
     • what the top players are doing
     • How they are flaunting the rules
     • Trends to look out for
     • Ideas for staying a step ahead
     • etc

Referee Jonathan Kaplan had another solid game in the middle controlling the first Super 14 final to be played at the home of the Bulls, Loftus Versveldt in Pretoria.

The contest did not last very long as the Bulls destruction of the Chiefs was all but complete half way through but Kaplan held his nerve despite being tackled by one of the Bulls players. His eye didn’t leave the ball and he was not fazed by the hit.

With refs of this quality, neutrality is not a requirement for Super 14 refereeing assignments. Unfortunately, Kaplan is in a class of his own.

The Crusaders made all of the early play but it was the crucial 10 minute stints immediately before, and after half time that decided this one.

Thomas Waldrom was sin-binned for a defensive infringement at a ruck 5 metres from his own line.

The Bulls put on 13 points before Waldrom returned and the tide was well and truly with the Bulls.

It is difficult to know what would have happened had Waldrom not been binned.

If the tables were turned, you can guarantee Bulls fans would be rope-able. They had already become agitated from the early penalty count that was stacking up against their team.

In the 26th minute Australian referee, Stu Dickinson yellow cards Hurricanes prop Jon Schwalger for an indiscretion in a ruck on his own 5 metre line.

TV replays showed that the ball was being transfered to the back of the Chiefs’ ruck when it hit a Hurricanes player and bounced clear. It was not swiped away illegally.

Dickinson was on the other side of the ruck but seemed to have convinced himself that foul play was involved. His linesman (with a better view) seemed to be in complete agreement and gave him Schwalger’s jersey number.


Commentator Grant Fox said: ‘that’s actually nonsense’, describing Schwalger as being ‘very hard done by there.’

The most that was deserved was a short-arm penalty for not rolling away.

Donald missed the penalty kick, which was a bit of justice but the Chiefs scored their first try while they had the numeric advantage, stretching the Hurricanes out wide.

The Chiefs had the general run of play but the Hurricanes were always capable of winning, They opened the scoring with a try against the run of play (and with a hint of a forward pass).

The ball looked to travel forward from Victor Vito to Ma’a Nonu for the Hurricanes try that put them ahead on the 20 minute mark.

Dickinson was behind the play and so (quite rightly) consulted his linesman who was lot closer. Without confirmation of being forward, Dickinson gave the try.

Bottom Line

When bad calls are made early in a game, they seem to lose some of their controversial edge but there’s no getting around the fact that it was a bad call and could have cost the Hurricanes their season.

The Crusaders needed a bonus point win to ensure they made the semi-finals. Auckland were determined not to end another disappointing season on a bad note.

This game was shaping up as a classic Auckland v Canterbury encounter reminiscent of epic battles from the past:

1985 Ranfurly Shield nail-biter

1990 no-scrums Ranfurly Shield challenge

1998 Super 12 Final

… but it was not to be.

It was a low-scoring, conservative but professional approach from Canterbury who won by a Leon MacDonald drop-kick in the final minutes.

They woudn’t have needed it had the video referee not made 2 huge blunders, disallowing a Crusaders’ try and allowing a Blues try that wasn’t.

Referee Bryce Lawrence questioned one of the calls and may have been better over-ruling but I guess that’s not allowed these days.

Jonathan Kaplan also double-questioned the video referee in the Chiefs v Brumbies match the night before.

The pass looked flat but it was hard to tell on the TV replay whether it was forward.

Marius Jonker (SAF) made the call against the home side that must have broken hearts in Jo’burg.

The Lions had clawed their way right back into the match and would have won it with the last minute attack.

It gave the Warratahs a chance of making the semi-finals and the way the video ref was going at Eden park, they must have thought they were in with a serious chance.

Stu Dickinson is a pedantic ref and he likes blowing the whistle. He doesn’t know the first thing about scrummaging either, making 2 crap calls early on by awarding free kicks to the Chiefs on Brumbies put in.
He later sin-binned a Brumbies forward for cheating at the ruck when the Chiefs were hard on attack. The penalty was kicked by Donald and that was all that separated the sides in an unremarkable game on a wet night in Hamilton.

Overall, the Brumbies were on the downside of the 50-50 calls and in a tight game, that can be enough to swing it.

Verdict: Dickinson is still crap

It started 20 minutes in when he penalised the Brumbies scrum on their own feed which gave the Blues a shot at goal. Highly unlikely that the team feeding the scrum would pull it down on half way, especially when the Brumbies scrum was going well.

Then, 2 minutes later, Goddard seemed to want to even things up by penalising the Blues for a very questionable obstruction call that the Australian commentators didn’t even find fault in.

At the 25 minute mark, Goddard gave another scrum penalty against the Brumbies which was just as bad as the first one.

The Blues scored a try from the next play. The Brumbies could feel justifiably aggrieved.

On 68 minute mark a call was made that the commentators described as “this is how you lose matches – by ridiculous touch judge decisions.”
The Blues were stopped when they were looking promising, for no reason.
A forward pass was ruled but the replays showed otherwise.

Unfortunately Goddard was back to his typical (bad) form.