The 10am call an upset Sale gave referee Ian Tempest last Sunday

Sale boss Alex Sanderson has revealed he was on the phone venting to referee Ian Tempest the morning after last weekend’s dramatic Gallagher Premiership at Northampton. The second-place Sharks had built an impressive 24-7 half-time lead despite the early red-carding of Manu Tuilagi. They went on to lead 34-19 with 20 minutes remaining despite a Cobus Wiese sin-binning but they then lost momentum, eventually losing 34-38 in a fiercely entertaining match during which they suffered a critical Ewan Ashman yellow card on 67 minutes.

The setback upset Sanderson and he was on the blower on Sunday morning to talk things through with Tempest before then forwarding a series of clips from the Sale game for review by the referees’ group at the RFU. The feedback that resulted was that the Manchester side was extremely unfortunate, but England Rugby HQ stood by the decisions taken by their officials at Franklin’s Gardens.

“It’s done now and I’m trying not to keep carrying it but the communication between myself, Ian Tempest, (referees boss) Paul Hull and every other ref before this weekend has been nothing short of brilliant,” said Sanderson ahead of this Sunday’s trip to Exeter where Luke Pearce will be in charge.

The feedback that we got was that it was extremely unfortunate that all the big decisions went against Sale… If that is how they are going to see the game I have got to coach accordingly.

“Their openness to speak post-game, to speak pre-game… I rang up Ian at 10 o’clock on Sunday morning because I was still carrying it and he answered the phone on his day off – and it’s his day with his family. That’s brilliant. We talked around the issues and I vented a bit and he’d tell me how he saw it and then I sent the clips through on Monday.

“There’s none of that process that I found frustrating from the weekend. It was just the inconsistency of some of the decisions, the inconsistency because they weren’t all bad by any stretch. It was a great game to watch. But for us to get it that wrong and the admittance that all the big decisions went against us, I guess the blame has to fall on us. We weren’t either coaching it correctly or weren’t clear enough as to the pictures they wanted to see.

Sanderson, who has been in charge at Sale since January 2021, went on to explain the current lines of communication between Premiership teams and referees during the 2022/23 season. “There is more forum for communication this year which has been beneficial,” he said. “It has certainly benefited us in our understanding and the improvement in the discipline.

“So you are able to speak to them up to 48 hours before a game. There is some leeway, you are able to send clips through about the opposition to get clarity as to what their perception of certain infringements are. Also, in terms of us, we like the refs to speak to the opposition about the clips we send through, so it’s not just a case of catching people out. We want the whistle to blow less and for the referee to have less impact on the outcome of the game. That is the pre-game process.

“Post-game you can send up to eight clips in within 24 hours and what I have been doing personally is generally calling the refs up and having a conversation, like a 360 feedback on what he perceived and also our perceptions or feelings of how it was reffed and how it was communicated on the field because that relationship is also important.

“And then on the back of that, you will get feedback on the clips we send in… I might add I haven’t sent in any clips post-game this season until this week at which point there were wholly disregarded. It just means I need to improve my communication with them so I understand.”

Sanderson added that it would a positive for the sport as a spectacle if non-working referees could potentially work with broadcasters during a match to explain decisions as they happen. “Definitely. We have 45 players, some of them who have played for up to 20 years, and we still get refs in consistently so they can communicate what they are seeing, what the directives are from World Rugby.

“Sometimes it shifts within the 3,000 laws that there are what they are looking to emphasize because the game takes on trends as does the refereeing of certain aspects of the game, general set-piece and breakdown. There is a constant re-education of our players and they are on the coalface.

“Like when Wayne Barnes goes onto Rugby Tonight and they talk through certain decisions, whether or not they can explain it or there is a referee as part of the commentary and they could talk them on certain decisions from a referee’s perspective to tell the audience, to tell the people so there is a better connection there as to what is going on. Like I say, I probably need a bit of that myself.”