Brumbies cop a pie from the Peyper

After their 31-11 loss to the Stormers at Cape Town, the Brumbies have stretched their run of Super Rugby losses in the regular season at Cape Town back in time to 2010.

Like all the other visiting teams they find it very, very hard to win in South Africa. But winning at Cape Town appears to be almost beyond them. The Jonkerism that experienced at Cape Town did not make what was always going to be a difficult match to win any easier.

There is an aberration that needs to be acknowledged here, however. Last year in a Super Rugby qualifying final, the Brumbies monstered the Stormers 39-19 at Cape Town to power into a semi-final clash with the Hurricanes in Wellington.

The referee for that 2015 qualifying final was the South African whistle-blower Jaco Peyper. The Brumbies ended that match with two men in the sin-bin. But such was their dominance they still contrived to put Jesse Mogg in for a try a minute from full time.

Jaco Peyper was the referee for the 2015 qualifying final. He was also the referee for this weekend’s Stormers-Brumbies clash.

It needs to be said at the onset that the Stormers thoroughly deserved their 31-11 victory. They played splendid rugby in the old tradition of South African rugby, with powerful set pieces, massive and mobile loose forwards, clever halves, and direct, hard-running outside backs.

I don’t think, for instance, that the Stormers excellent half-back, Nick Groom, put in even one box kick in the match.

The mind goes back to the last few years when South African half backs, in Super Rugby and Test matches, kicked away ball after ball, playing into the hands (literally) of the best New Zealand teams, particularly, who delighted in running back these stupid kicks for tries.

And before we get too carried away with Peyper’s early penalty count against the Brumbies (it was 7 Brumbies conceded to 3 conceded by the Stormers at half-time), I would note that the Stormers were scrupulous about rolling away after the tackle.

The cynical toppling over into the opposition ruck, a Brumbies tendency, at least early on this season, is not part of the Stormers method.

And like most South African sides they are not as obsessed as the Brumbies (and most of the other Australian sides are) of digging in with their hands at every ruck and maul.

You can see in David Pocock’s game the rewards and the risks of this digging method. One of Pocock’s turnovers (was it his only turnover?) against the Stormers resulted in a penalty. From the lineout inside the Stormers 22, the Brumbies winger Henry Speight scored a terrific try, after a fabulous break and massive cut-out pass from Tevita Kuridrani.

The point here is that this was one of the few times the Brumbies actually gained a foot-hold inside the Stormers 22. That illustrates the rewards that come from the Pocock game.

The other side of the coin with the high-risk digging game is that Brumbies penalties were partly responsible for five Stormers shots at goal, four of which were successful.

70 per cent of the match was played in the Brumbies half of the field. This field position dominance allowed the Stormers to enjoy a territorial dominance that led, ultimately, to the successful penalty attempts and three tries.

So comprehensive in all facets of the game were the Stormers, including the set pieces with the Brumbies struggling in the lineouts and scrums, that Stephen Larkham and his coaching staff will be forced to re-evaluate every facet of the Brumbies power game.

This is going to be a coaching test for Larkham. How he comes through it will tell us a lot about whether he is ready for higher coaching honours.

In the excellent Roar blog of the match, commenter Just Speaking FACTS noted, at the end: “Spiro will have a lot to say on that on Monday since it happened in South Africa. He might also choose to ignore what happened in the Crusaders game because the score wasn’t close enough.

“But the overall officiating in games this year and last year, hasn’t been good at all, the big wigs in SANZAAR must find a way to fix this.”

Readers of The Roar will know that I have ranted for years about the use of referees from the same country as one of the teams playing the match. And these rants have been so unsuccessful, SANZAAR has actually used local referees (as with Peyper in last year’s qualifying final, Stormers-Brumbies) in finals and grand finals, even though when the system was introduced it was specifically said that this would not happen.

Local referees for international matches, even when they are provincial matches, is regarded in virtually every tournament system as wrong. It is diabolical for finals.

However, I will lay off this local/neutral referees controversy to concentrate on the TMO shambles that Just Speaking FACTS alluded to in his perceptive comment.

Around 16 minutes before full-time, there was a scuffle from a lineout deep in Brumbies territory. Josh Mann-Rea, the Brumbies reserve hooker, emerged from the scuffle throwing a couple of punches and what looked like several elbow jolts.

To be honest, it was hand-bags at 10 paces stuff. This is how referee Peyper was inclined to rule it, it seemed.

But frequent interventions from the TMO Marius Jonker, a former referee and not one of my favourites, virtually forced Peyper to bring out a red card.

The point here is that Jonker badgered Peyper with “change it to red” calls. Peyper gave in to the pressure from his TMO.

I would mark this as a victory for Jonkerism, a tendency for a TMO in his bunker to assume that he knows more about an incident than a referee who has observed it metres away on the field.

Then a little later the Stormers winger Dillyn Leyds lost the ball in a tackle as he was in the act of planting it down for a try.

Leyds told Peyper not to bother going to the TMO to check out whether the ball was grounded correctly. This advice was ignored.

Even the match commentators after the first replay were sure, adamant in fact, that there had not been a legal grounding of the ball for a try.

But Jonker, again, kept on badgering Peyper. The referee made the fatal (for the Brumbies) mistake of telling a bewildered Leyds that there was a distinction in the Laws of Rugby between contact with the ball in the act of grounding and control.

Control of the ball, apparently, is not needed over the try line and in the act of grounding. Contact is the key factor.

This means that if the ball slips from the hands of a player as it is being planted but if the arm or part of the body remains in contact with the ball, a try can be awarded.

“Do you want to check that?” Jonker could be heard asking Peyper as soon as he heard the referee explaining this point to Leyds.

Finally, after a number of replays and to the astonishment of everyone, except Jonker and Peyper, the try was awarded.

Incidentally, when the ‘try’ was replayed in real time, it was clear that Leyds had no control and no contact.

Another victory for Jonkerism, aided materially by some vintage Peyperism. If you are in doubt about this latter, ask the Blues about their South African experience with referee Peyper a couple of years ago.

***

My position regarding the use of referees and officials who are local as far as one of the teams is concerned is that they should, if anything, compensate in favour of the non-local side.

New Zealand referees, generally, tend to do this. Thus Nick Briant, a New Zealand referee, seemed to be overly generous to the Waratahs at the SFS on Friday night in their match against the Highlanders.

The Highlanders, admittedly won the penalty count 10 to 4. But for nearly 60 minutes of the match they were totally dominant.

The possession statistics favoured the Highlanders 64 per cent to 36 per cent, offloads 24 to 8, run metres 634 to 452, rucks won 106 to 42, tackles made 56 to 140 and missed tackles 18 to 30.

These are the statistics indicating a massive victory.

The 22-0 advantage to the Highlanders at half-time was the first time since 2009 that the Waratahs have been scoreless at half-time in Sydney.

And at one point, the score line was 30-0 to the Highlanders.

Then in about the last 20 minutes or so minutes of the match, with the crowd roaring on the home side with chants of ‘New South Wales, New South WALES!,’ the Waratahs stormed back to score 26 unanswered points.

Two of the four Waratahs tries scored in this period was gifted to them by the officials.

Briant turned a benign and seemingly unseeing eye on the young prop Tom Robertson as he picked up a ball from a blatantly offside position, while loitering beside a ruck, and chugged his way like a train going up a steep hill, to the try line.

Then the TMO found a try to Jed Holloway from a pile of bodies and a ball seemingly buried by players short of the try line.

Justice was done in the end with the Highlanders hanging on to win. They played brilliant rugby for nearly 60 minutes and then almost kicked the game away from themselves as they tried to survive an inspired Waratahs fightback.

The key to the Waratahs fight back was the injection of a number of younger players, replacing several senior players some of whom have surely done their dash as starters.

Prop Tom Robertson replaced Angus Ta’avo and made an impact around the field. Whether he is part of the answer to the Waratahs crumbling-cake scrum remains to be tested. But he was certainly effective in the rolling mauls and hit-up plays.

Jack Dempsey (flanker) and Jed Holloway (No.8) provided real impetus to the forward momentum of the Waratahs when they came on.

Holloway scored three tries and within a minute of coming on to the field scored a try. His three tries represents the first time in the 134-year history of the Waratahs that a reserve has scored a hat-trick of tries for NSW.

Holloway was particularly impressive in the first two games of the season when he started against the Reds and the Brumbies. There is no way coach Daryl Gibson should start with Wycliff Palu, as he did against the Highlanders, while Holloway is available.

Palu looked slow and ponderous in his return, characteristics he shared with the other disappointment in the Waratahs pack, Will Skelton.

The commentators noted that Skelton was listed as weighing 140kgs. It seemed more like 200kgs so rooted to the turf he was on most occasions when he got the ball.

The league convert Sam Lousi offered so much more than Skelton, in the lineouts and around the field, that it is obvious that he should be starting in the Waratahs pack, at least until Skelton gets fitter and improves his mobility around the field.

Reece Robinson, another league convert, played well enough on the wing to suggest that Zac Guilford should be given a rest on the reserve benches.

And Matt Lucas at half-back was so assured, steady and skilful in those last minutes that he also deserves a lot more time on the field as a sub for Nick Phipps.

On Saturday morning, I went to the Centennial Park Deli and chatted with coffee-maker extraordinaire Tony about the match.

“Mate,” he told me, “it’s all about passion. The young players are local and they’ve got it. Daryl Gibson has got to bring some of these youngsters into the starting side for their next match.”

Tony, you not only make great coffee, you know a lot about the dynamic.

***

That next match is on Sunday when the Reds, re-invigorated by their draw against the Blues, play the Waratahs at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium.

In their 25-25 draw against the Blues, the Reds showed a strong scrum, a weakish lineout and some enthusiastic running from their young backs. Karmichael Hunt, too, impressed with some direct running out of tight defensive situations.

According to the Blues coach Tana Umaga, the penalty count of 14-7 in favour of the Reds was “unfairly skewed” against his team. The Australian referee Andrew Lees and his assistant, Nic Berry and Jordan Way, treated the Reds leniently, Umaga claimed.

The ‘wuz robbed’ claim is a traditional one for losing sides, and even teams that draw matches they expect to win.

But I believe there is some merit in Umaga’s claim. He says he is going to ask “some questions” about some of the decisions. I doubt, though, whether SANZAAR is going to provide any satisfactory answers to him.

Early on, the Blues scrum was monstered by the Reds. But the Blues were not helped by Lees insisting on the Blues halfback feed the ball in from a position close to the Reds front row. The Reds halfback was allowed to stand virtually in line with his own props, a situation that aroused the Blues halfback to some hand-flapping from time to time.

There several occasions at scrum time when the Blues looked to the assistant referee to tell Lees about some infringement made by the Reds scrum. But for all the reaction they got, they could have been calling out to a brick wall.

Then towards the end of the match, when the Blues were holding on to a precarious lead, the Blues scrum clearly shoved the Reds off the ball. When the Blues claimed the feed because their scrum was moving forward, Lees told them he didn’t see it that way.

The evidence of the Blues forward shove was right there in front of him.

The Reds retained the feed. And from the scrum scored a brilliant try that gave them the lead with minutes only remaining to be played.

Lees did award the Blues a penalty in front with time up. But this followed ruling a forward pass against the Blues to rule out a winning try.

It would have been interesting if Lees had used the TMO to see if in the movement that resulted in the try, the Blues did make a forward pass.

Referees, after all, must be fair and should be seen to be fair. Perception is an important element to reality.