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After many years playing and then many more refereeing, I have retired from rugby. Too old, slowing down and in too much pain days afterwards due to a degenerative condition on my Achilles tendon.
The most memorable game I refereed was US Army versus Seattle. I was on a conference in the US and was invited to officiate this game. It was exciting fast rugby, end to end and very tough and confrontational.
The US Army team was infamous for over the top play and treating the rugby laws as guidelines. To correct this I called the captain over. In the US team they make the ranking officer the captain. I told him he was my adjutant and I was the commanding officer and I was holding him personally responsible for the conduct of his team. It worked wonders as the captain kept them in line.
I refereed many Aussies, Kiwis, South Africans and Islanders in Australia. In general they lived up to the stereotypes.
The Aussies were the biggest sledgers, the biggest talkers and whingers. They had the most lawyers and were quick to point out all the illegalities I was missing or ignoring – against the other team. They knew the law book backwards and forwards, however they would stand on their high horse and ignore the way I decided to interpret it.
Most penalties were for backchat. The irony is that they complained the most about too many penalties but also asked for the most to be awarded.
The Kiwis were the best cheats. They studied how I was interpreting and kept testing the waters on what they would get away with. When I did ping them they just shrugged their shoulders or said, ‘yep got me that time’. Their only fault was that they thought I would not keep penalising them and this cost them games. They did say that I did make it a more open game since I stopped them slowing it down all the time.
The South Africans were the hardest and most confrontational in their style but rarely resorted to thuggery or fighting. I was very impressed by their toughness. They would run into the teeth of waiting players and then bounce up after being hammered and smile. They did not care about being shoulder charged or a cheap shot or two – they just smiled. They were the poorest at adjusting to the ref’s interpretations, however.
The Islanders were the most naturally talented. Incredible athletes. It made my day just being able to watch the incredible rugby they put on. They were also the most likely to get into fights during the game, or so it seemed.
The ironies
A hooker complained about the opposition hooker having his foot up early, and asked me to keep an eye on it. I said I would. Promptly at that scrum the complainer had his foot up early and I gave a short arm penalty against him. He had the cheek to ask what it was for and I said “you should know, you asked me to keep an eye on it”. His captain gave him an earful it was a five-metre scrum with their feed. This sort of thing happened often, the player complaining about something was often a culprit of it himself.
The smartest play
I awarded a penalty to a team 15 metres out and 10 metres to the side of the posts. The captain took the ball and walked to where I had awarded the penalty. He place the ball down on the ground in front of me and tapped it towards me with his foot.
He said to me very quietly that he had tapped the ball and that I should ignore his pointing to the sticks – he was playing on. He picked up the ball and pointed to the sticks (I did not) and he passed the ball to his kicker, the flyhalf, who then ran a play. They scored and won the game.
The best sledge (against me)
I wore contact lenses, but as I got older they really irritated my eyes so I went to glasses. I brought my labrador to games and him tied up at the grounds. The captain was asking about various things and I said I did not see it. He looked at me with a smile on his face.
He said, “Well you have your glasses, you brought your seeing eye dog, there is not much more you can do is there?” I laughed and laughed at that. I said I was glad he saw how hard it was for me.
Another time I had too much chat on the field. I called them in and said there were 20 refs out there. A guy in the back pipes up “and you are not in the top 10”.
Best sledge by a player to a teammate
A player tried to to milk a penalty, taking a big dive after minor contact and rolled around the ground. I blew a penalty against him, and he stood up all indignant pretending he was the injured party. He kept arguing so I carded him. A teammate said to him, “good, you could use the time off to get acting lessons because then at least you’d be good at something.” They hated him diving and he did it all the time.
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