Sports After Dark

When a referee is forced to deal with foul play on the field, often top players react with disbelief or deny involvement, but these attitudes set a very bad example to young players who look up to their idols.

Law 6 contains a couple of relevant quotes: “The referee is the sole judge of fact and of Law during a match.”, and “All players must respect the authority of the referee. They must not dispute the referee’s decisions.” As referees we allow players some leeway on the second quote, but what is happening in the Super 14 is pushing the envelope too far in my opinion.

When young players see their idols questioning decisions on a regular basis, or staring in disbelief at the referee when a decision goes against them, they view this as acceptable conduct and emulate the professional players. As a result, referees at club and age group levels often find themselves in combustible situations.

A great example of this was seen last weekend in the Crusaders vs Hurricanes match. Hurricanes’ second five Ma’a Nonu was penalised in the first half for a shoulder charge, and when he committed a similar infringement in the second half, his first reaction was to look at the touch judge to see if he had been caught. When he realized that his illegal tackle had once again been picked up, Nonu used several obscenities to tell the touch judge, Steve Walsh, to “keep his nose out of it”. Contrary to media reports, Nonu was yellow carded for the verbal abuse and not the tackle, something I learned in a post match discussion with Walsh.

While Nonu was being spoken to by the referee, he first claimed disbelievingly that the tackle was not a shoulder charge and then that he had not abused the touch judge. However, many witnesses have said otherwise.

In tonight’s match between the Highlanders and Hurricanes, the Hurricanes’ captain Tana Umaga was also yellow carded, this time for a professional foul. Despite what some pro-Hurricanes commentators said, it was a clear professional foul and I applaud referee Chris Pollock for his decisive action. But once again, Umaga reacted with disbelief first with being penalised, and even more so when the yellow card was produced.

The question then has to be asked, what exactly is dissent and how should the sport of rugby union deal with it? Referees are quite entitled to produce a second yellow card, an automatic red card, for players showing dissent at their decision, but almost never happens, especially at the top level. Instead the referees ignore the bad attitudes and questioning stares, allowing players to continue to set a bad example.

One solution that has worked very effectively in cricket is a players’ Code of Conduct. Cricketers are fined for breaches of this Code, most frequently for showing dissent to umpires’ decisions. And now we no longer see bowlers running down the pitch celebrating, before staring at the umpire in disbelief when the batsman is given not out.

There is a fine line between showing disappointment and dissent, but in rugby union that line is frequently crossed. And when the stars of the game are not held to account for dissent, it becomes acceptable and makes the job for referees of all levels that much harder. If the IRB are serious about taking rugby global, they first need to clean up their game and players’ attitude is a good place to start.

Similar Posts:

• Time for some guidelines for referees to deal with foul play
• Umaga blasts referees before signing off
• When referees get it wrong
• Referees attempting to clean up rugby’s show piece
• South Africa must improve discipline if they hope to compete at World Cup

The Why do top players lack discipline? by Hamish McBrearty, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.