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Will Mathieu Raynal be the star of the show in the first Bledisloe test?
Who’ll be the star of the show at Marvel Stadium on Thursday?
Will it be Rieko Ioane? Captain Fantastic Sam Cane? Marika Koroibete or Rob Valetini?
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Sadly, as we’ve become increasingly accustomed, it might well be referee Mathieu Raynal.
I don’t seek to blame referees for rugby’s ills.
After all, it’s an incredibly thankless task.
I was at a schoolboy match the other day, where a spectator found fault with a parent-referee’s decision.
The ref stopped the game to ask the spectator if he’d like to come out on the field and do it himself. I can’t quote what the referee said but, when the spectator replied “no,’’ the ref told him to shut the front door, or words to that effect.
It’s easy to dismiss Wallabies great David Campese. The man has a lot to say about rugby and rarely is any of it good.
But Campese was right in taking the game to task last week and for trying to speak on behalf of disgruntled and bewildered fans.
Rugby has so many laws, seemingly all of them open to interpretation, which contribute to making the sport stop-start at best.
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From scrums, to the breakdown, lineouts, mauls and incidental contact with the head, referees aren’t short of areas in which to intervene.
I was disappointed, as a fan of rugby, with the way Nic Berry refereed the recent match between New Zealand and Argentina. The Pumas were probably never a chance of upsetting the All Blacks two weeks in a row, but I didn’t feel Berry even allowed them the opportunity to make it a contest.
Similarly, Ben O’Keeffe played way too big a part in South Africa’s win over Australia that same evening.
Refereeing is incredibly hard, not least because of all the audio the man in the middle gets in his ear. Georgian Nika Amashukeli copped a bit of grief for the way he controlled the All Blacks and Pumas in Christchurch, but I’d contend it was the Television Match Official and Assistant Referees who ran that match.
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Amashukeli was guilty of over-explaining decisions that night, I suspect in part because often he wasn’t the one making them.
Look, I just want the ball in play and for the two teams to decide the outcome. If a few scrums hit the deck and the breakdowns are a shambles, so be it.
I’m tired of scrum re-sets and referees guessing which prop to penalise for a collapse. I get no satisfaction from hearing the whistle blow every time a ball-runner hits the deck.
I can’t believe we’re having official water breaks in test matches, when guys in bibs are bringing bottles on every couple of minutes as it is.
Rugby’s not alone there. There isn’t a round of the English Premier League that passes without comment on the inadequacy of the VAR system.
The NRL’s Bunker has made that sport almost as stop-start as rugby and cricket’s DRS wastes minutes analysing incidents that should take seconds.
The search for a perfect game, a game without error or controversy or anything to frighten the mothers of would-be players has spoiled a good product.
It has given officials – both on and off the field – licence to nitpick and interfere. Too often the whistle blows and no-one, be they player, coach, spectator or commentator knows why or who’s at fault.
It’s not always that way. I thought Angus Gardiner was in total command, when South Africa beat the All Blacks at Mbombela Stadium.
It was clear he had the TMO and ARs in his ear the whole time, but he ran the show. He let the game flow and he ignored the attempts of the other officials to overrule him.
But that’s the exception, as far as I can tell.
I hope Thursday’s test in Melbourne is a contest. I hope the ball’s in play, both teams perform well and that there’s a worthy winner in the end.
Most of all, I don’t want us to be having to debate whether a particular law is fit for purpose or if Raynal was right or wrong in deciding something that determined the outcome.
I’ll give you one law to ponder, before I go.
In rugby league, a deliberate knock down is merely a knock on. The defender doesn’t have to try and intercept the ball, he doesn’t have to prove his palm was pointing upwards and that he was trying to effect a catch.
The whistle simply blows, a scrum is packed and the game carries on.
I’d take that over 25 replays from various angles that result in someone being sent to the sinbin.
This is what we can now expect 12 months out from the World Cup. Referees aren’t interested in the flow of the game or who wins or loses. The only thing that they’re interested in is not missing an indiscretion no matter how minute. The only thing that’s important to them is getting a gig in France even if it screws the game.
A prophetic article, unfortunately 100% correct. He was the most influential person on the field, absolute howler of a call to cost the wallabies the game.
Pity, that's all anyone is talking about. Rugby is the real loser here.How unfortunately, eerily prescient this article turned out to be
Excellent article and in my opinion pretty much spot on. I wish we could go back to the days of the referee being the sole judge of fact.
I didn’t see who authored this article. Perhaps the players could help the refs by playing by the rules and everyone wear a helmet. It’s so ridiculous to obsess about contact to the head but do nothing regarding proper protection.
Come on, are you serious ?
Refs have full video support and regulations that answer 99.5% of situations to decide for.
Most do a good if not a great job. Some decisions trigger a debate, because interpretation / perception can be subjective. No sport escapes this tolerance.
But I would'nt say refs can, beforehand, ever be designed as "star of the game" !