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Jaco Peyper, the referee for the Stormers-Brumbies match and the TMO, Marius Jonker, made a fine mess of things with some controversial rulings and one truly bizarre decision.
Peyper seems to have survived this officiating debacle but Jonker is not on duty for this weekend, at least.
I will say at the outset that rugby referees have an incredibly hard job. The law book is thick with clauses and sub-clauses. Referees have to have the clarity of mind of a judge, who has months sometimes to rule on a complex issue, when they have only couple of seconds sometimes to come to a ruling.
Experts talk about the fog of war that making deconstructing what happened in a battle virtually impossible, even given an extended study of the contest. Referees operate in the fog of the rugby where at any one time there may be a dozen events occurring.
We expect referees, therefore, to make mistakes. All we want from them is a knowledge of the laws and an ability to apply that knowledge without fear or favour. But most importantly, referees should not show favouritism, or even a perception of favouritism.
But TMOs are different. They are expected to be correct 100 per cent of the time in their decisions. There will be mistakes because the TMOs are human and ‘to err is human’. But the tolerance for mistakes by the TMO should be very much lower than that for referees.
The fact is that the technology available to the TMOs should ensure that there are no mistakes. Mistakes by TMOs should be like a properly cooked steak – rare.
The corollary to this is that referees should not accept advice from the TMO that appears to be wrong, in their view.
The proper servant-master relationship between the TMO and the referee was exemplified during the recent France-England match.
The TMO queried referee Nigel Owens’ decision to award a try to England when two forwards ploughed forward to score a try. One of the forwards forced a tackle from a French defender.
The TMO was adamant that there had been obstruction against a French defender. Owens took a look at the replays, rather briskly dismissed the TMO’s objections and went ahead with awarding the try. This was the correct decision.
Craig Joubert, too, when pestered by the TMO will say: “I’ll tell you what I am seeing.”
This approach reinforces the referee master-TMO servant relationship, which is how the review system should operate.
If this system is in place, if the referee can see what needs to be seen and knows the laws, there shouldn’t be the fine mess that Jonker and Peyper got themselves into last weekend.
This bring me to an important question that needs to be raised: why was Jaco Peyper refereeing this match?
Last Friday, Glen Jackson, a New Zealander, refereed the Bulls versus Sharks match at Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria.
Why wasn’t the South African Peyper given this local derby to referee?
Why wasn’t the neutral Jackson given the South African Stormers versus the Australian Brumbies match to referee?
SANZAAR always replies to questions like this with the meaningless mantra that there are three key criteria to be fulfilled: overall performance throughout the Super Rugby tournament, accuracy in the big calls and “the right fit for the game”.
Jackson, like Peyper, is an up-and-coming international referee with some Test experience. Surely, he fulfilled all three of the key criteria to referee the Stormers-Brumbies match?
And this is, presumably, why this weekend he is refereeing the Cheetahs-Brumbies match at Toyota Stadium, Bloemfontein.
Peyper has been given the Sharks-Crusaders match at Kings Park, Durban. Jonker is not on TMO duty over the weekend. The TMO assisting Peyper is Johan Greef.
I don’t believe the Crusaders will be doing hand-stands of joy over either of these appointments.
Admittedly it was back in 2012 when Peyper was an inexperienced Super Rugby referee but his handling of the Bulls-Crusaders pool round match at Pretoria had Todd Blackadder fuming. With the Crusaders in rampant form and running away with the game, Peyper allowed the Bulls to allege, on no evidence, that two of their players had been eye-gouged.
Penalties flowed strongly to the Bulls after the allegations. Morne Steyn kicked eight out of ten penalty attempts and the Bulls won a match they should never have come close in 32-30. Incidentally, towards the end of the match, Peyper ruled a shepherding decision against the Crusaders disallowing a try, on the advice of the assistant referee.
When Keiran Read pointed out to Peyper and the assistant referee that teammates are allowed to run alongside the ball-runner, as long as they don’t block in front of them, he was told to go away.
Given this sort of history, it is hard to see how Peyper fits the three key criteria to referee the Crusaders in South Africa.
Johan Greeff, too, was involved as a TMO (with referee Stuart Berry) in a bizarre decision a couple of years ago when the Lions were awarded a try against the visiting Blues after a blatant knock-on that went metres forward.
That decision so bewildered Blues coach Sir John Kirwan that he contacted SANZAAR’s boss of referees Lyndon Bray.
As a consequence of a number of other bewildering decisions, including decisions affecting the Reds in their loss to the Sharks, Bray announced a crackdown on match officials:
“There is a lot of pain to come for referees. The fact is, they’re either going to get dropped out of the team, which is a significant consequence obviously, or suffering from the point of view of number and quality of appointments.”
With the current spate of plainly wrong TMO decisions in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, it is surely time for Bray to start another crackdown.
I repeat the point that TMOs should not make any mistakes. This is a doctrine of perfection. There will be mistakes. But there have to be consequences from these mistakes. Moreover, when these mistakes involve a referee just going with the flow with the TMO then that referee needs to be made accountable too.
Scotty Stevenson in The New Zealand Herald has argued for SANZAAR to be required to explain rulings that are clearly controversial:
“Acceptance of the human element in decision-making is all well and good, and it is quite legitimate for rugby to pound this message home at every opportunity, but how can we get a better understanding of the game’s myriad confusing laws if contentious decisions are not openly discussed?”
This is a very good question. It deserves an answer from SANZAAR.
I would suggest that Lyndon Bray do what the citing commissioners do when announcing a decision, as in the matter recently of Sam Cane.
SANZAAR’s ruling clear Cane on the grounds that he entered the maul in question “in a permissible manner”. At the same time, the Jaguares prop Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro “fell rapidly to the ground”. The contact between the two players was “unintentional” because Chapparo “was not carrying the ball”.
Why can’t SANZAAR give this sort of explanation for some of the controversial decisions over the past couple of weeks?
And will SANZAAR please explain why Peyper and not Jackson refereed the Stormers-Brumbies match?