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While most of us, bar perhaps Springbok fans, have been lapping up the excitement of all the running rugby we’ve seen in the Tri-Nations so far this year, there still appears to be one element that is fundamentally wrong with the way the game is being officiated at the breakdown, due to a lack of backing from the written laws of the game.
The breakdown is still an immense problem.
For me and countless others I’ve spoken to in general conversation about the Tri-Nations tests, the biggest frustration is that the goals the IRB set out to achieve after 2007 included a faster paced game, more tries and less penalties are being held back by the lack of hard nosed officiating at the breakdown.
After the farce that was the initial ELVs, with all the free kicks, which essentially destroyed rugby at its core, we have now converted to a more traditional set of rules with a few tweaks here and there to keep the ball in play for longer, which has sped the game up and on occasion we are seeing a few more tries.
But the key problem area holding this part of the game up is the written law and its lack of backing for refereeing the breakdown.
In the last three weeks, yellow cards have been dished out for everything but the one area of the game which I feel ruins it as a spectacle and essentially condones blatant cheating.
Killing the ball has long been an area of the game that players have chosen to risk doing simply because it is worth it.
Richie McCaw and David Pocock have gotten away with murder in the last three weeks. By an estimated calculation I think that what they do at the breakdown is legal, according to the written laws of the game, around about 30 per cent of the time.
In the second test against the Boks in Wellington, Richie McCaw was penalised on a number of occasions for killing the ball and was actually personally warned three times by referee Alain Rolland that “next time it’ll be a yellow card.”
This is a disgrace.
The referee cannot possibly forget he has said something like that to the captain of a team in a Test match and it is a problem that has been going on for so long.
It’s entirely possible that the Crusaders and the All Blacks put McCaw as captain of their respective sides purely so that referee’s would be scared of punishing him harshly in front of home crowds, and it’s the IRB’s fault that it’s happening.
But it doesn’t stop there.
David Pocock last week was penalised and nothing more after the Boks had made a huge break through Bryan Habana, who flicked it inside to Gio Aplon and retained possession.
Before the Boks could even get the ball out, Pocock managed to commit three professional fouls in one act no more than 10m out from the line: diving off his feet, coming in from the side and playing the ball on the ground.
All this directly in front of the referee and touch judge, whilst the Springboks had a decisive overlap out to the right of the breakdown.
Pocock should have been yellow carded, but he wasn’t.
The Springboks then took (stupidly, might I add) a quick tap and at the next tackle Pocock actually managed to stay within the law and grab a crucial and outstanding turnover, but he should’ve been on the sideline.
The Boks didn’t even get three points out of it and Pocock remained on the field, terrorising the breakdown for the rest of the game.
There is no doubting the skill of these two players and the fact the Wallabies and the All Blacks completely outplayed the Boks, and it is not my intent simply to single them out above all others, there are many players and teams who commit such stark lack of respect for the rules of the game, but I thought it important to point out examples fresh in the mind of rugby fans everywhere.
It needs to be written in the laws of the game that killing the ball inside the 22, commonly known as the ‘red zone’, is an automatic yellow card and a shot at goal worth five points.
It doesn’t make sense that if you are the attacking team and you have a distinct advantage at the time of the professional foul being committed, that a player should be able to deliberately cheat, stay on the field, and his team only concede three points.
This could be made up in minutes via a drop goal or something as ridiculous as a penalty conceded when they don’t even have the ball.
If a team is in a likely position to score a try, and a player deliberately infringes on their ability to recycle the ball, he is cheating and thus the attacking team should be rewarded for positive play and the defensive team punished for overt negative play.
Players will not deliberately do it if they know they cost their team a try’s worth of points and force them to play a man down for 10 minutes. But referees don’t have the power to enforce the end of this blatant cheating until it’s written in the laws of the game.
It’s unfair that referee’s appear to feel intimidated by home crowds and can be subjected to criticism for applying the rules correctly.
They need to be backed up.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.