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Refereeing differences must be ironed out ahead of Rugby World Cup – Andy Goode
The Super Rugby final laid bare how much work there is still to do in terms of the officiating ahead of the Rugby World Cup and there is just a couple of months to put things right.
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Anyone can make a mistake, and the decision not to send off Anton Lienert-Brown was a glaring one on the biggest stage in southern hemisphere club rugby, but it seems clear there is a major difference between the hemispheres when it comes to refereeing.
Both Super Rugby final referee Ben O’Keeffe and TMO Brendon Pickerill are going to France as one of the chosen few in those roles and such a blatant error can’t be allowed to happen on the biggest stage of all.
It did feel like there was a desire not to send a player off because it was a final, which cannot be the case, but there is definitely a cultural difference and contrasting attitudes between the northern and southern hemispheres as well.
We have seen other instances throughout this season and going back further where tackles that clearly meet the red card threshold have been allowed to go unpunished or have resulted in a yellow card and World Rugby need to make sure everyone is on the same page.
As is always the case with major tournaments, there will be a host of camps and get togethers for the officials ahead of the 2023 World Cup and a couple of months is enough time to make significant progress but it would have been better if everyone had been singing from the same hymn sheet for the past few years as well.
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SANZAAR are responsible for the referees in Super Rugby and, aside from the law differences, they don’t seem from the outside to be taking quite the same approach as governing bodies in European rugby.
The challenge that ended Dallas McLeod’s Super Rugby final has long been a red card offence, it’s as clear as day and we’ve spent a lot of this four-year Rugby World Cup cycle discussing such incidents and trying to do whatever we can to eliminate them from the sport.
In the southern hemisphere too many are still being overlooked and the message isn’t filtering down to the players, or the fans for that matter, so behaviour isn’t maybe changing as fast as we’d all like.
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Lienert-Brown’s tackle in the Super Rugby final was a particularly bad example given the way the laws are in that competition at the moment. O’Keeffe did the right thing as the referee by issuing a yellow card and allowing the TMO to make the call but Pickerill didn’t upgrade it to a red, despite having eight minutes to look at it.
It should’ve been a perfect example of the law trial working well but instead it was an obvious error and it just shows that, regardless of the system you have in place, you have to trust the human beings to utilise it correctly under pressure and come to the right decision.
There has been talk of implementing a TMO bunker ahead of the World Cup in September and we’ll have to wait and see exactly what laws and systems are in place for the biggest tournament in the sport but the difference in approach and interpretation between officials in the southern and northern hemispheres has to be addressed.
Frenchman and former top international referee himself Joël Jutge is World Rugby’s High Performance 15s Match Official Manager and he acknowledged the amount of work there is to do when the match official team for the World Cup was selected last month.
“Selection is one milestone, and we have a lot of work to do before the start of the tournament with warm-up matches and The Rugby Championship. But this team has a great work ethic, an unwavering spirit and a great bond and we will all benefit from increased time together as we prepare for what will be a very special Rugby World Cup 2023 in France,” he said.
That period of preparation over the next couple of months is going to be crucial for a host of nations that maybe aren’t quite where they would have liked to be after an entire four-year cycle, England among them, and for some countries welcoming in a number of new players because of the change in eligibility laws.
The lengthy spell together could be something of a leveller and enable teams to make up at least some ground on the teams that have been leading the way over the past few years and it’s going to be just as vital, maybe more so, for the team of match officials.
They still have time and will be given all the resources necessary to get the approach right and get on the same page but there’s going to have to be a shift in mindset in some quarters from what we’ve seen in recent years and the Super Rugby final is sure to be a case study used to demonstrate what not to do.
Comments on RugbyPass
I’ve just noticed that this match has an all-French refereeing team. Surely a game like this ought to have a neutral ref? Although looking at the BBC preview of the Saints game, Raynal is also down as reffing that - so there may be some confusion about who is reffing what.
1 Go to commentsIf Havili can play anywhere in the back line, why not first 5. #10.
11 Go to commentsThe dressing room had already left for their summer break before they ran out in Dublin that year, and that’s on the coach. Franco Smith has undoubtedly made progress, particularly their maul, developing squad players and increasing squad depth. And against a very tight budget too. That said they were too lightweight last year and got found out against both Toulon and Munster in consecutive games. Better this season so far but they’ve developed something of a slow start habit occasionally, most notably losing at home to Northampton who played them at their own game. Play offs will ultimately show whether there has been tangible progress on last year, or not…!
2 Go to commentsAustralian Rugby has been a disaster, by not incorporating learning from previous successful campaigns. QLD Reds 2011 - Waratahs 2014. Players, coaches and administrators appoint there representatives for scheduled meetings, organisation’s agreement’s assessments and correspondence. This why a unified Rugby Union under one entity works. Every Rugby nation has taken that path. Was most difficult in the Northern hemisphere with over 100 years of club rugby before the game become professional. Took a lot of humility for those unions to eventually work together.
7 Go to commentsThough Wilson’s sacking was pretty brutal, it wasn’t just down to that Leinster game; Glasgow had a lot of 2nd half collapses that season, in the URC and Europe, and only just scraped into the playoffs. Franco Smith has definitely been an improvement, some players are delivering far more than they did under Wilson.
2 Go to commentsjesus - that front 5!
1 Go to commentsShould be an absolute cracker of a game! Will be great to see DuPont & Ntamack in tandem once again🔥
1 Go to commentsBest team ever…. To have played? These guys are still pressure chokers. Came nowhere when it counted. What a joke
69 Go to commentsMusk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
1 Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
2 Go to commentsIt is crystal clear that people who make such threats on line should be tried and imprisoned. Those with responsibility in social media companies who don’t facilitate this should be convicted. In real life, I have free speech to approach someone like Reinach and verbally threaten him. I am risking a conviction or a slap but I could do it. In the old days, If someone anonymously threatened someone by letter the police would ask and use evidence from the postal system. Unlike the Post, social media companies have complete instant and legal access to the content in social media. They make money from the data, billions. Yet, they turn a blind eye to terrorism, Nazi-ism and industrial levels of threats against individuals including their address and childrens schools being published online all from ananoymous accounts not real people. They claim free speech. Free speech for anonymous trolls/voilent thugs threatening people under false names? The fault is with the perps but also social media companies who think anonymous personas posting death threats constitutes free speech.
2 Go to commentsSo if this ain’t the best Irish team ever then who exactly is? I don’t remember any other Irish team being this good & winning a series in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Yes I may rip them often for 8 X QF RWC exits & twice not even making it to the QF, but they’re a damn good team who many think can only improve, including me!
69 Go to commentsNot a squeek out of Leinster for weeks about this match. So quiet. The first team have been quitely building for this encounter under Nienaber’s direction. All fresh, all highly motivated. They are expecting a season’s best performance from Northhampton. They will match that. They will be fresher and apparently they will have 80,000 out of the 83,000 shouting for them. I do expect Northhampton to turn up big time. Not to be missed. On a tangent it is evident how the loss of a few Premiership teams has in some respect helped other Premiership teams and England. More quality over less teams makes the teams better, which has a knock on effect on England. Not the only factor contributing to England’s rise but one of them.
2 Go to commentsOur very own monster teddy bear Ox😍💪
17 Go to commentsThis is might be the most generalised, entitled, patronising, out-of-pocket cultural indictment on a group of people you’ll ever see on what is supposedly a sports publication. I can only assume the author is weak like a woman or homosexual. I’m feeling an incredible range of emotions but I am not quite sure how to express them. I might go beat up a hockey player - assuming that’s okay with Duane and the boys? 🙂
9 Go to commentsBest thing the Welsh clubs could do is apply to join Gallagher prem surely be more exciting matches for there support than they have now.
2 Go to commentsRugbyPass writers are useless! you guys should get a real job because you all suck at writing about rugby!!!
9 Go to commentslooking forward to RWC2027 …. Boks on mission impossible for the Three-in-a-row, ABs to prove they being on par, France wishing to crown the “DuPont-era”, Ireland knocking on the Semi-Door ….. until then we’ll probably have to deal with Weird Ben’s fantasy-RWC23 (fun fact is, the drivel always creates a flooding of comments) …..
223 Go to commentsBen Smith you really make some good points in this article, the Springboks were not close to perfect and good still beat the All Blacks, imagine if they were as good as they were against France what a hiding the All Blacks would have gotten… maybe another Twickenham drubbing
223 Go to commentsIt is a good argument to keep the Rebels for one more year but also isnt this just opening the door as well for keeping them beyond 2025. If they can create some sort of financial stability in the next year and if their performances lift as they have this season then how would RA even cull them after that? It might be the most cost effective decision at this stage and perhaps many people are guilty of keeping relationships going because of the cost to decouple but then again when does that ever work out well?
29 Go to comments