Speeding up the game for RWC and touching on the solution

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article re the Freddy Steward red card. I had a little hissy fit and pulled it from the editors, because it sat in the pending bin for a few days and was kind of overtaken by events. How dare they suspend my alcohol fuelled rant?

Just kidding, esteemed editors!

If memory serves, at that time, everyone was mesmerised by Eddie’s and Hamish McLennan’s stoush with Peter Vlandys – which, to me is no more than a media beatup by Eddie, ensuring that the player agents will all be circling like sharks in a feeding frenzy, but little else will come of it, other than some bonus headlines, and sucking in the Mungos for trampling on their precious players – I am old enough to remember the amateur days of the 70s and 80s, where they shamelessly plundered our playing ranks, and we copped it and took it on the chin.

But, as usual, I digress, and what I posited was that the RWC is a very important event, backed by a couple of squillion broadcaster bucks, so there is no monetary reason that they should not throw the kitchen sink at getting this whole question of red cards and delays right (apart from the fact that they are alickadoos and are looking for their next feed).

Now, we have the situation – (as usual, tested and verified in the SH before the suits at World Rugby take years to get onboard) – that the referee can give a yellow or a penalty and just move on and leave it to the TMO to make a decision on whether or not to upgrade to a red. The TMO has 8 minutes to make the call, if a yellow has been awarded, or the ability to cite if no yellow.

Excellent idea, and, in the main, seems to be working, but what seems to have crept in is that the ref is now relying more on, and allowing, the ARs to have a say.

Layer upon layer of control and/ or interference.

I have a radical suggestion and it is twofold:

(1) that the host broadcaster loosen up the purse strings a fraction and employ, say, four or five assistant TMO’s whose sole job is to look at one (only) camera angle whenever there is a contentious decision, so that the TMO (as sole judge and arbiter) can make a swift and final and hopefully, correct one. I’m not entirely sure that this is an answer, but is definitely worth considering, at least for World Cups. As usual I am doing some of my thinking on the run.

(2) The next, most important and most radical suggestion is to have the Assistant referees downgraded to the same status as the old “touchies’ because it seems that with the current system, refs are depending too heavily on the ARs and letting them interfere in the way that the TMOs used to.

In other words, remove a layer of interference.

I would unmike the ARs and go back to the situation where the AR can only hold his flag out in front of him to mark an offence, as in the good old days, which the referee is free to ignore. Let’s not forget that the reason for the introduction of the AR preceded the introduction of the TMO, so it may be argued that the powers of the AR are no longer necessary.

In other words, let’s get back to the essence and the spirit of the laws of Rugby where the esteemed referee is the sole judge of fact and law (and time).

Nobody ever argues with the concept of a citing commissioner who swings in after the event. The TMO should be thought of, in the same vein.

We have numerous mantras in our game, such as “it’s a game for all shapes and sizes” and “it’s a series of sacrosanct contests” , but we seem to have gotten away from what I consider just as vitally important ..” ..the referee is the sole judge..”

With respect, the ref now has a million cameras watching every angle and does not need the input of the touchie as much as he or she may have before the advent of the TMO.

More relevant is the fact that he or she also has the benefit of the big screen so it is not a mystery to him (or her) as to what happened. If you have five or six assistant TMO’s, sitting in a booth, you should be able get a pretty quick result, whereby the TMO can select the angle, and on the advice of a qualified watcher, make an authoritative decision.

If it’s a matter of, say, a suspect prop on the other side of the scrum, committing a sin, then the ref can always observe it from the other side and that sends an immediate message to the offenders to watch out. You don’t need an AR to pull that off.

I will just reiterate that one of the finest bits of refereeing I have seen in recent years was Damon Murphy reffing an NRC game, where one of the team was Qld Country, played at Bond Uni. He made precise and quick decisions on the run, there were no replays and if he made any mistakes, nobody saw them. If memory serves, it was a fair game with a reasonable margin to the winners, so nobody was going to complain.

At grassroots level , the manager shakes the ref’s hand before the game, the ref hands him one of his 2 touchie flags, and says..” can you get one of your boys to run the line?” and you do. No need to put that bloke through a test of the laws, just tell him to whack the flag up where the ball goes out make sure he gives the feed to the right team, and even that is not important, because the ref (sole judge) will override him if he wants to.

Let’s face it – whatever system we introduce there will be losers and winners, (“gripers and grinners” ), no matter what the result.

Being an aggrieved fan is all part and parcel of the game, except that in RWC there is often no “next week”. To those who are on the losing end, you just employ the mantra of “suck it up, buttercup”…. and then enjoy reading the gripes on The Roar for the next 10 years from those bad losers (and we all suspect that we know who they are..!)

Let’s face it, this is nowhere near the gravitas of what is going on between Russia and Ukraine. Lives are not in the balance, just some national pride, and a bit of testosterone, and some people whose Sportsbet account took a hit.

For the RWC, let the TMO interfere only in exceptional circumstances, give him a time limit in which to do so, leave the ref to referee on the fly and take the ARs out of the game, and then let the buttercups have their day.

We don’t just follow this great game because we are happy spectators – we follow it because we are all fat old, opinionated props, or once brylcreamed fancy dancing backs, who are invested in the fabric of it and who love to analyse it all.

Simples!! And may that never change!