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An interview with the referee
Posted by: | CommentsAs the new era of openness and accountability for referees is upon us, I got my first opportunity to interview a referee, Chris Pollock, after the Crusaders vs Sharks game on Friday night. I’ve spoken to referees after games before, including a long conversation with Stu Dickinson last year, but until Friday these conversations have always been off the record.
The first thing I notice as I approach Chris is that none of the major print media outlets seem interested in him. In fact, after talking to Sky TV, it’s just me, a freelancer and a couple of students from the NZ School of Broadcasting who approach Chris.
Immediately I realize I’m leading this interview for all the others so I start off by introducing myself to Chris, who immediately asks if I’m related to David McBrearty, a former Air New Zealand Cup referee coach and my father. I think this is getting off to a good start.
First question is an easy one for Chris, in a game free from what assessors would call “critical incidents”, how had he enjoyed the game? Chris tells me that it was an enjoyable game to referee, but he would reserve judgment on his performance until he had checked the tape of the game later.
Thinking this is a fair, if slightly stock and meaningless answer, I press on with my sole “hard” question: There seem to have been a number of issues at scrum time, was this a case of being unable to initially identify the culprit or giving the players a chance to sort it out themselves?
“I thought pre-engagement they were very good and compliant,” he answers, “But after engagement it was very competitive. You had two international players going up against each other and just giving it a good crack.”
The other notable feature of the game, from a refereeing stand point, was the amount of chatter from the players. Referees are never short of advice, but from what I observed, this seemed to be a bit more than usual.
“Everyone’s in to wanting to have a crack,” says Chris, “It’d be boring if they didn’t.”
Finally I ask how he enjoys refereeing the Crusaders. Chris tells me they are a positive team who play an attractive brand of rugby and are always a pleasure to referee, which is a fairly pragmatic answer to give in the players’ tunnel under AMI Stadium.
As I conclude, I can’t resist a cheeky question about his refereeing colleagues and how they are to work with. Chris’s face suddenly breaks into a broad smile. “Terrible, just awful these Canterbury boys,” he says grinning mischievously.
I look up and spot Kane McBride, the TMO, over Chris’s shoulder who returns the grin and I know that these guys share a wonderful passion and camaraderie for one of the toughest jobs in rugby.
As I reflect on the interview, it was somewhat strange to pick apart the referee’s performance and then ask him to account for certain aspects of his game, but giving the fans an incite into how the referees think and critique their own performance can only make the game more accessible. However, as a referee myself I will try to extend a certain level of professional courtesy to the referees and refrain from asking questions like, “Why did you miss so many forward passes?” as was suggested by one reporter after the game.
Inside The Numbers: Week 1
Posted by: | CommentsThe first Wednesday of the 2010 Super 14 season means it’s time for my first Inside The Numbers column of the year. Since the major talking point of week one was the much harsher refereeing of the breakdown area, I’ll be taking a look at how this has affected scoring in the competition.
Two of Fairfax’s star rugby writers, Toby Robson and Duncan Johnstone, penned stories noting that try scoring is down on week one in 2009. They are, of course, correct but perhaps taking too narrow a view of the stats.
Week one of 2010 produced 30 tries, while week one of 2009 gave us 45, a drop of 33%! But the full story is, week one of the 2009 Super 14 was a blip with only week 13 producing more tries (46) and only four weeks out of 14 producing more than 40 tries.
The average number of tries scored in a week in 2009 was 35.57 and three weeks actually produced fewer than 30 tries, so perhaps the drop in try scoring during the first week can be put down to another statistical blip.
So while the esteemed rugby writers of the world pen their editorial columns bemoaning the lack of attacking rugby and claiming that the tough new breakdown interpretations have failed to achieve their goal of more running rugby, because it’s too early to make that kind of comparison yet. One round does not make a season, and the final judgment can really only be made at the end of the round robin.
And here’s an interesting little anomaly: there were actually more points scored in week one of 2010 than in week one of 2009.
Is the media mature enough to interview referees?
Posted by: | CommentsIn an effort to be more open with the media and public, SANZAR are now allowing match referees to front the media before and after games. While this will hopefully give fans an incite into how a referee goes about one of the toughest jobs on the pitch, will the notoriously fickle media be able to hold back some of their less warranted criticisms of the match officials?
Unfortunately it would already appear that 3 News have shown they lack restraint and a little maturity with their first piece of the season about referee Stu Dickinson.
The introduction to the story contains the claim that Dickinson racked up one of the highest penalty counts in Super rugby history. Now claim reeks of a lack of fact checking and reporter putting their own spin on a story with no regard for facts.
Firstly, with the new interpretations of the tackle ball law coming into effect and players reverting to bad habits as they tired, the penalty count was always going to be higher than usual. And that doesn’t even take into account the participants, the Blues and Hurricanes, are not exactly known for their discipline.
Secondly, I seriously doubt that 25 penalties (yes, that’s how many Dickinson gave out, some of us were counting) is “one of the highest penalty counts in Super rugby history.” Just a quick look at some of the other games from this round, Craig Joubert also dished out 25 penalties, while Keith Brown gave out 23 and Jaco Peyper blew 21, yet somehow I don’t see Brooke Sabin doing a story about a record number of penalties being given in the opening round.
Sabin then asks the viewer if Dickinson was refereeing a game of rugby, or trying out for an orchestra followed by a montage of Dickinson blowing his whistle. Another element carefully chosen to portray Dickinson in a poor light.
The claim of blowing his whistle more than 30 times baffles me a little, we know there were 25 penalties, so were there only a few scrums and lineouts in that game, or did Sabin pick “blowing his whistle” as an expression in an attempt to have the view believe that the penalty count was higher than it was (25).
But once again, I come back to my old adage that if the players don’t infringe, the referee won’t blow his whistle. Even Dickinson himself said, “I don’t like blowing a lot of penalties but if it has to be done, it has to be done.”
Referee Dickinson set his standards early on in the game as to what he expected at the tackle, as the referees have been asked to do by the coaches themselves, but the players failed to adjust, yet TV 3 decide to run this thinly veiled hit piece on the referee rather than asking the coaches and players why they did not heed the warning.
Fortunately other media outlets were a little more restrained in their coverage, with Sportal noting that the tackle ball interpretations were known to all Super 14 teams and players would need time to adjust to the way it was being refereed.
So TV 3 and Brook Sabin, you win the first ever Sports After Dark yellow journalism award for intentionally fueling the perception that Dickinson performed poorly, and was to entirely to blame for the somewhat high penalty count on Friday. Perhaps a review of the facts before putting that sort of story to air could be in order…
UPDATE: Having checked up on this story further, it appears TV 3 trimmed a quote from Blues’ coach Pat Lam to suit their agenda on this story.
TV 3 quoted Lam as saying, “I know there were some frustrations on behalf of the players on some of the calls made.” He did say this but added in the same sentence: “but we’ve got to take responsibility. At the end of the day 27 points [from penalties] and an intercept try speaks for itself.”
Disgusting
Conrad Smith: “I’m not a fan of the video ref”
Posted by: | CommentsAnother weekend of rugby, and again we are talking about match officials, this time the Television Match Official (TMO), sometimes called the video ref.
When All Blacks centre Conrad Smith crashed over the line in the 62nd minute against Wales he seemed certain that he scored, but referee Craig Joubert decided to have the decision checked by the TMO. The decision came back as held up over the line, although the video evidence was decidedly inconclusive.
The man himself said after the game, “Yeah I thought I grounded the ball but who knows? I got up thinking they’d called a forward pass because that’s all the Welsh fellas were telling me, so I didn’t celebrate then they went upstairs… I’m not a fan of the video ref.”
“I’d love refs just to make the call. That’s a big part of rugby. But there’s a fair argument if they’re big calls in test matches and video refs can help them, maybe there’s a case for that but it’s out of my hands.”
Scraping the TMO is not really an option anymore, fans, players and coaches demand that the right decisions are made with regards to scoring and rightly so. However the current IRB protocol for how questions are phrased to the TMO and how the TMO responds to the referee are a bit lacking.
Smith’s non-try was an excellent example. It had all the initial appearances of a try from the body language of both teams but with doubt in the referee’s mind it was referred upstairs. Due to the sheer number of bodies around the ball, there was no clear grounding of the ball so the TMO was unable to give a decision.
So what’s a better protocol for TMO decisions? Personally I like the NFL system where referees make a decision on the field, then check the tapes for “irrefutable video evidence” for overruling their original decision.
This protocol sort of exists within the IRB’s frame work under the question, “Is there any reason I cannot award a try?” but this is only used when the referee is almost certain of a try.
Perhaps the IRB should trial an NFL style of system where referees will instead say, “I believe that a try has been scored, can you rule this out?” or, “I believe the players foot was in touch before the ball was grounded, can you confirm this?”
Of course no system is perfect, but surely the existing one could use a little tweaking.
Deans’ right with criticism of All Blacks’ tactics
Posted by: | CommentsFollowing his side’s 19-32 loss to the All Blacks in Tokyo, Wallabies’ coach Robbie Deans fired a stinging criticism at the All Blacks’ tactics, particularly while under pressure. Many in the New Zealand media has dismissed this as sour grapes from a man who now has a six match losing streak against the All Blacks, but an objective look at the game shows that Deans could be onto something.
“Can anyone tell me what the penalty count was?” Deans asked a packed press conference, more accustomed to asking the questions than fielding them. The answer was 13-9 in favour of the Wallabies, but that wasn’t the point Deans wanted to get across.
“I know of the first six penalties, four were in the red zone, and there probably should have been a couple of others when the ball was lifted out of rucks one metre short of the line,” he added. “That’s frustrating from our perspective, particularly when you play a fixture in Tokyo when we’re trying to promote the game… I don’t think it contributed well to the game today.”
The point that Deans was attempting to get across is that the All Blacks seemed to kill the ball almost every time they came under pressure. The video evidence is fairly damning, on the very first Wallaby incursion into the All Blacks’ 22, Adam Thompson flops over the ruck and kills ball, leading to Australia’s first points of the night.
Throughout the night Thompson and Rodney So’oialo spent more time flopping around on the ground than beached whales, frequently giving away penalties but effectively denying the Wallabies scoring opportunities. Only Thompson earned the ire of referee Mark Lawrence but after a brief admonishment, it was back to business as usual.
While this turned out to be a good tactic, and went a long way to securing the win, it is a high risk approach to the game. In a game controlled by a referee less lenient than Lawrence, Thompson and So’oialo could easily have been on the receiving end of yellow cards.
Perhaps most worrisome is the defence of this tactic by All Blacks’ assistant coach Steven Hansen. “It was a very contestable game at the breakdown and when you get games like that you’re going to get penalties, and get people off their feet,” Hansen said, “Both sides were guilty of it, as the penalties on the scoreboard showed.”
That may be the case, but referees will pick up on this and should Craig Joubert police this area more strictly that Lawrence this weekend, yellow cards could hold the key to Wales’ first win over the All Blacks in 56 years.
