SPIRO: Let's hope the referees don't stuff up the Super Rugby finals

The SANZAR media release came up on my laptop at 3.04am on Monday morning. My first reaction as I read it was, “Dammit, why is SANZAR trying to stuff up the Super Rugby finals.”

This reaction was provoked by the surprise announcement that a New Zealand referee, Glen Jackson, was going to referee the Crusaders-Sharks semi-final and a South African referee (but not Craig Joubert who will run a sideline) Jaco Peyper will handle the Waratahs-Brumbies semi-final.

After all the problems SANZAR had with local referees – referees from the country of one of the contesting teams – earlier this season, why would they go back to one for a crucial semi-final? The Reds and the Blues had their seasons stopped in their tracks with poor local referees in South Africa.

SANZAR had to sack a couple of referees and stand down others, in order to get on top of the problem the local referees were causing to the tournament.

Once this was done, the standard and quality of play in all three franchises was raised appreciably.

And with Joubert refereeing the Brumbies-Chiefs match and Steve Walsh, a New Zealander but now employed by the ARU, doing the job with the Sharks-Highlanders match, we were treated to two of the best finals in recent memory.

Particularly with the appointment of Jackson, SANZAR is jeopardising the integrity of the finals. But why?

One of the annoying things about SANZAR is that they do not explain decisions like this. They justify them by saying they choose the “best referees for a particular match.”

But why are Jackson and Peyper regarded as the best referees for the weekend’s finals?

Why were Joubert and Walsh considered the best referees last weekend, and not this weekend?

My objection to Jackson has nothing to do with his competency. He is a youngish referee who played rugby well at a high level. So he understands the players perspective which is an important consideration for a referee.

But local referee should never be involved in finals. This is the practice in rugby tournaments around the world for the last 20 years or so. Moreover, the last time this was tried by SANZAR, when Bryce Lawrence refereed the Reds-Crusaders final in 2011, it was a disaster.

Lawrence was so eager to prove he was unbiased, he gave penalties against the Crusaders – including a penalty against Richie McCaw that the Reds converted to win the final – that should have gone the other way.

No referee should be placed in the situation where his decisions have to be justified within the prism of whether he is benefiting or harming a side whose country he resides in.

Already, South African experts are making comments about the possibility of the Sharks being affected by the refereeing. Here is the sports scientist Dr Ross Tucker of the Sports Science Institute of South Africa making the claim that the referee could be a factor “that makes things difficult for the team playing away from home.”

Dr Tucker argues, too, that the Sharks are already ten points down with the home advantage worth five points and travel being worth another five.

Well, who knows. The type of rugby played by the Sharks, Jakeball, is not affected too much by home ground advantage. The Sharks won matches this season in Australia and New Zealand. They also defeated the Crusaders at Christchurch even though they played most of the match with 14 players.

The referee, incidentally, was the Australian Rohan Hoffman. He did the right thing. But would a local referee react the same way? The inevitable calls  from the Sharks of ‘we wuz robbed’ would have, in my view, concentrated the mind of a local referee to be slightly more lenient.

The Sharks rely mightily on Bismarck du Plessis, who is arguably the best, most imposing forward in world rugby right now. They will also rely on the referee giving them plenty of penalties to kick for goal and to get up their driving mauls from lineouts, which were penalised several times by Walsh.

The Opta Facts reveal the Sharks allow oppositions the least amount of possession – only 15 minutes in a match – of any other team.

Against that, the Crusaders concede fewer penalties any other team in the tournament, an average of 10 a game.

Both teams play structured rugby. Both teams have strong set pieces. But the Crusaders have a better attack, and a greater willingness to attack, especially when the Fijian monster Nemani Nadolo, who has scored 10 tries this season, is playing.

I would expect the Crusaders to win this match and set up a final against the Waratahs.

Again we go to the Opta Facts for some statistical insights. The Waratahs are the best Super Rugby team in 2014 for: most carries, metres gained, offloads made, passes completed and clean breaks. They have averaged the most points scored (30) and the fewest conceded (17).

The Brumbies have a try difference, for and against, of +14. The Waratahs have +31.

These are the statistics of a complete team, which the Waratahs are.

I have also been impressed with the fact that coach Michael Cheika is adamant that the Waratahs are going to play their attacking, running game despite the emotions and intensity and importance of the occasion.

My contention is that coaches of tournament-winning Super Rugby franchises invariably bring new systems of playing the game and a coherency and clarity to the play of their teams that make them impossible to break during the finals. These systems can be as different as the Bulls system was to that of the Crusaders in their glory days.

I was most impressed with a brilliant analysis of the Waratahs attacking system that Scott Allen produced in The Roar a week or so ago. He showed that Cheika had refined the Crusaders system of having two lines of potential runners from phase play by having the first line coming up in the shape of an arrow head.

The leading runner had an inside and outside runner just inside his left and right shoulders. This formation, as Allen demonstrated, forced the defensive line to provide more defenders than they would if only one runner was coming forward. It also gave the runner and catcher options where he might distribute his next pass.

Throughout this season, the Waratahs have been able to get the ball wide, with Israel Folau and Adam Ashley Cooper making breaks almost at will. Scott Allen has shown why this has happened.

Can Stephen Larkham devise tactics to close down the arrowhead play?

This is what coaching is all about. If he can, the Brumbies will provide the Waratahs with a stern contest.

Larkham also has to hold his nerve and allow the team to play the Macquee-ball game, which has worked so well in the last two weeks.

Laurie Fisher, the Brumbies forwards coach, has done a terrific job with the side’s phase play. The Brumbies win 96 per cent of their rucks, the best of any team. This means that if they get momentum going, they are a hard side to stop.

And talking about momentum, Henry Speight ran for 134 metres in the first half against the Chiefs. The Chiefs’ inability to keep him in check was a significant factor in their loss. Can Rob Horne hold Speight? And can Spieght, who missed an easy one-one-one tackle last weekend, hold Rob Horne?

This brings us back to Jaco Peyper. On Wednesday on The Roar there was a fascinating discussion on the referees for the semi-finals. One of the comments made stuck with me. Peyper, the Roarer noted, was a ‘momentum shift’ type of referee. He is inclined to give out penalties to one particular side in batches.

This has the effect of creating a momentum for a struggling side to carry it an unlikely victory. And here is another statistic that may or may not be significant in the end. The Brumbies have scored more tries from set pieces, lineouts (25) and scrums (12), than any other team in the tournament.

If they get a flow of penalties, then the Brumbies know how to convert them into points from the subsequent set piece play.

Despite all of this I am optimistic that all four teams will play really well in these semi-finals. They are all in their different ways terrific sides. And at the end of the day we’ll be looking at a Sydney final between the Waratahs and the Crusaders.