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I read Jonathan Kaplan’s article on Rate the Ref and he suggested the idea of having rules experts in the commentary box. I agree with his opinion.
In the game between Hurricane’s and Stormers, Rohan Hoffman made a number of confusing decisions. The one was really stuck out in my mind was when the Stormers were penalised for “changing lanes”.
In case you want to know what changing lanes means I will let Kaplan explain: It “Refers to the attacking team who do not power through the middle, thereby allowing the original maul to profit from poor defence. Instead, they use the back end of their maul to go around the corner of the defence with the ball still held at the back.”
This is something that happens a lot at maul time and is very inconsistently refereed.
Another questionable call was when the Stormers received a penalty for a Hurricanes player not rolling away, even though Reggie Goodes had all rights to the ball and was contesting fairly. Technically you could call this correct, but the tackler who didn’t roll away did not affect the contest for possession and had a Stormers player lying on top of him to prevent him from rolling away.
Now despite what some readers think, I am not personally attacking Rohan Hoffman. I know him very well and think he is a great person. He just made a number of decisions during the Hurricanes and Stormers game that left people like myself, who have a very good understanding of the rules, very confused.
Now I am sure that if we had a former referee in the commentary box it would make games easier to follow and easier to understand. It works very well in the NFL where former referees are in the commentary box explaining complicated decisions.
Also in instances when referees are right and commentators are wrong, you would have a former referee there to explain why the correct decision was made.
What do you think Roarers? Would you like to see former referees made staple members of rugby commentary boxes?
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