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During the half-time break at the absorbing NSW Waratahs – Crusaders match, I remarked to a refereeing expert that the game was being very well-refereed without the need of Chris Pollock (NZ) having to throw out a poker hand of yellow cards.
My expert smiled and replied: ‘That’s always possible when you get two teams trying to play positive rugby.’
I got the point. The Waratahs and the Crusaders were trying to win the ball at rucks and mauls while the Hurricanes and the Bulls were essentially trying to stop the other side winning the ball.
Moreover, according to the expert neither side would listen to Matt Goddard, even when he told one of the Hurricanes players: ‘You’re not slowing down my ball.’
It appears, too, that Goddard had been told at a referees’ review meeting that he’d been too soft on infringements.
Put these factors together and you got a match where the referee dominated proceedings, something that the ELVs with its short arm sanction for all but three offences at the ruck and maul were intended to stop.
My point is that if the teams are recalcitrant, as the Hurricanes and the Bulls were supposed to be, then there are ways and means with the laws and refereeing techniques to get around this and get a flowing, skilful and fast game that the players and spectators want.
Exhibit One to back up this assertion is the Lions – ACT Brumbies match, won splendidly by a game and tenacious Lions side, and refereed by one of the top referees in world rugby, Jonathan Kaplan.
Kaplan had trouble initially getting the Lions to be positive in the rucks and mauls. He awarded the Brumbies a number of short arm penalties and when the Lions continued lying on the ball warned them officially that he was moving into yellow card territory.
The Lions skipper Cobus Grobbelaar was duly given a yellow card. Kaplan punished ‘cynical’ play with long arm penalties (which is a correct response), penalised the Brumbies when they infringed and was accurate in his rulings.
This last point is crucial, I think. Too many referees give calls on what they don’t actually see. We know this because the replays underline the fact that the call has been wrongly made.
The game was a cracker and interestingly the Lions actually played very well when they fell into line with the referee’s determination (which was not expressed, correctly) to have a real rugby contest.
Exhibit Two is the NSW Waratahs – Crusaders game. There is an article on The Roar from a Waratahs supporters written up after the match that he found the contest dull and boring.
This was not my feeling at the ground.
The game had the 32,000 or so spectators highly engaged with both sides launching break-outs that went from one 22 to the other 22.
There was one yellow card against the Crusader’s Isaac Ross for cynical play in coming back too slowly (lazy running, in the jargon) and forcing Kurtley Beale to drop a pass in a movement that might have led to a Waratahs try.
One of the features on Kaplan’s and Pollock’s refereeing is that both allowed a contest at the ruck and maul. One of the principles of rugby, which is enshrined high up in the IRB Charter of Playing Rugby, is that it is a game where there is a continual contest for possession of the ball.
By allowing vigorous, hard-shouldered mauling and counter-rucking, the referees honoured this basic principle of the rugby game.
This continual contest principle sometimes, often perhaps, allows for messy rugby. But it is the distinctive aspect of rugby union and when the game is well-refereed to allow a fair contest for possession, allows for an unpredictable and therefore often exciting spectacle.
The second Crusader’s try, for instance, in the second half came from a Waratahs attack from a scrum inside the Crusader’s 22. Kurtley Beale and his runners missed the timing of their move. The ball spilled. The Crusaders raced away with it, with Ross the big second-rower running like a winger, and seconds later the ball was being planted behind the Waratahs’ posts.
Despite their loss the Waratahs remain in the top 4 in the table, only 2 points adrift of the Sharks in second place and 3 points from the Bulls (who have a game in hand having already had their bye).
The Bulls with their kicking and chasing game, which is backed by a ferocious defence (they’ve conceded the fewest points in the tournament, 79) got a valuable away win against the Hurricanes. Even without Bryan Habana and Victor Matfield they look, at this stage, to be certainty for a finals spot.
And so do the Sharks who demolished the Western Force at Perth, especially in the second half, in another entertaining and fast-paced match (like all the other matches in the round except the Hurricanes – Bulls debacle).
Although the Lions and the Cheetahs are bottom of the table, both these sides are at least running the ball and playing as expansively (if not too expertly right now) as you can expect South African sides from the high-altitude veldt to play.
The Stormers who were sitting out their bye round have not lived up to their high expectations at the start of the Super 14 season. But they are likely to prove a difficult side to defeat for a number of other aspiring finals teams.
Why are the South African sides going so well?
I think that it is the British and Irish Lions factor. The Lions tour will be the great rugby event of 2009 (as it will in 2013 when the Lions tour Australia). There is a tendency, if the tours of 2001 and 2005 are any indication for the Lions to concentrate the minds of the local players.
In 2001 Australia, which enjoyed a Lions tour that year, produced a Super Rugby champion with the Brumbies and won the Bledisloe Cup – and defeated the Lions. A vintage year for Australian rugby.
In 2005 when the Lions toured New Zealand, it was the same story.
There is a sense of history repeating itself this year with the Lions’ trek through South Africa. The Sharks and the Bulls are making their strong Super 14 challenges. And the abundance of talent in South African rugby in every position (except five-eights perhaps), the Springboks should defeat the Lions and probably win the Tri-Nations.
But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.
The Sharks and the Bulls look like good things right now for the finals but we are not yet at the halfway mark in the tournament. The Waratahs are well-placed. There are five New Zealand teams directly behind them, and the Brumbies just a point behind the last of the New Zealand.
In racing terms, we have made the first circuit of the track. There are two clear leaders. But the field is bunching up in the middle. The chase is on to catch the leaders. And we are a long way away from final stretch to the run home.
If you freeze the shot of the field at this point, you’d fancy the chances of the Sharks and the Bulls. But after next week when the the shot is unfrozen?
The Blues play the Waratahs at Auckland.
The Highlanders play the Bulls at Palmerston North (making the Dunedin-based Highlanders the visiting team, in a sense).
The Crusaders play the Stormers at Christchurch (with the Stormers having a bye week last week to get to New Zealand before the Crusaders).
The Queensland Reds play the Chiefs in a match that features two teams playing ultra-expansive rugby which might need a cricket scoreboard for the points tally.
The Sharks play the Brumbies at Durban, with the Sharks travelling back from Perth (on cloud 9 presumably) after their devastating victory over the Western Force.
The Lions play the Hurricanes at Johannesburg with the home side rampant and the Hurricanes, one would think, somewhat down after their stupid and losing play against the Bulls at Wellington.