Archive for Super 14
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
Super 15 format revealed
Posted by: | CommentsYou heard it here first, with no inside sources I practically nailed the new Super 15 competition structure. Clearly SANZAR must read this blog and come here for advice, or perhaps we both know a good idea when we hear it.
The key difference between my proposal and the new format is the six team playoff system, where the three conference champions and three wild card teams make the playoffs. The top ranked conference winners receive a first round bye in the playoffs, while the rest battle it out in elimination finals.
One question which hasn’t been answered anywhere that I’ve read is how the rankings will work to determine the first round of elimination finals. Will the teams be ranked according to their competition points? Or will the lowest ranked conference winner be ranked above the wild card teams?
Here’s an example from this year’s tournament. South African Conference champions are the Bulls, Australian Conference the Waratahs and New Zealand conference the Chiefs, wild cards go to the Hurricanes, Crusaders and Sharks. The Bulls and Chiefs are the top two ranked conference winners and get a first round bye, so the question is: Would the Waratahs be ranked above the Crusaders and Hurricanes because they won their conference, or would the Hurricanes and Crusaders be ranked third and fourth due to their competition points?
The only other difference from my proposal is the fact that teams will only play four of the five teams from the other two conferences in regular season play, eight games instead of ten. Do we need a full round robin system? No, and as always the cream will rise to the top. Notice the six teams who would make the playoffs under this system? Notice where they are on the points table? First through sixth, funny that.
Here’s what I think Super 15 should look like
Posted by: | CommentsNow that SANZAR have reached an agreement that will see Super rugby expanded to 15 teams for the 2011 season, the question everyone wants to know is, what form will the competition take?
Since the details are yet to be announced, here’s how I would structure the Super 15 if I were in charge. First detail to get out of the way, where does the 15th team come from? The obvious answer would be Australia, probably Melbourne, which gives all three nations involved five teams each.
There is the obvious argument against expansion, particularly as all three nations have at least one team who seem to be perennial stragglers, such as the Reds, Cheetahs and Highlanders, but for the purposes of this proposal, I’m ignoring that.
First off, split the teams into geographic based conferences.
| South Africa | Australia | New Zealand |
| Bulls | Brumbies | Blues |
| Cheetahs | Force | Chiefs |
| Lions | Melbourne | Crusaders |
| Sharks | Reds | Highlanders |
| Stormers | Waratahs | Hurricanes |
What purpose do these conferences serve? Two purposes, firstly we want to see more derby games, more rivalries and a bit of provincial pride for these teams so I propose that each team plays the other four teams in their conference twice, once at home and once on the road. That makes up eight games of the schedule. The question then is, would organizers want a true round robin tournament where everyone plays everyone else, or can some regular season fixtures be dropped in favour of an expanded playoff format?
I see no reason not to go for the full round robin, leaving teams to play 10 inter-conference games for a total of 18 regular season games. This also tailors to the request from the broadcasters for more games, a total of five more games per team or 45 additional fixtures.
Then comes the tricky matter of who makes the playoffs, and this is where I use the conferences once again. Take the top two teams from each conference, they’re in. Then compare the remaining nine teams and take the top two regardless of which conference they are in, call these the wild card teams.
Now rank these teams one through eight, with the conference winners automatically in the top three regardless of points, and play a single elimination playoff system. That is to say, quarter finals, semi finals and a grand final. Or use one of the excellent alternatives to this such as the NRL’s McIntyre System or the AFL’s modified version of this system.
Let’s look at this year’s table and how it would pan out under this system:
South Africa would have the Bulls and Sharks through, Australia the Waratahs and Brumbies, New Zealand has the Chiefs and Hurricanes though while the Crusaders and Force claim the wild card spots.
Seedings
| Seed | Team | Points |
| 1 | Bulls | 46 |
| 2 | Chiefs | 45 |
| 3 | Waratahs * | 41 |
| 4 | Hurricanes | 44 |
| 5 | Crusaders | 41 |
| 6 | Sharks | 38 |
| 7 | Brumbies | 38 |
| 8 | Force | 36 |
Now notice that the Waratahs are seeded above the Hurricanes and Crusaders, despite having fewer points or a worse points differential, that’s because they would be Australian Conference Champions and as such, entitled to a seeding of no worse than third. We would then be looking forward to four quarter finals in Pretoria, Hamilton, Sydney and Wellington this weekend and all three nations would be guaranteed representation.
What do you think? Should I sell this idea to SANZAR and retire to a tropical island?
