Referees must be consistent

andrewdcs

From the Times today

Seeing as all other threads discussing disciplinary decisions have been locked for descending into red v blue farce I'm sticking my neck out putting this up.

I'm more interested in the breakdown area and how its refereed.

Any views on how to manage the breakdown?
How is it working out on pitches all over the country?
No one wants more law changes, but inconsistency is very damaging to any sport.

Marshy

By its very nature the breakdown is a very challenging area to ref. At a given ruck there's often 2/3 penalty offences committed by both sides (going strictly on the laws) so its up to the ref's interpretation as to who is penalised, if anyone. Going on what I see, they generally let some things go and will be particularly vigilant on some offences.

So in my view, we either accept that the rules may be applied differently from game to game or opt to alter the rules to make the breakdown area clearer (if that's possible). I do think that most refs are consistent in their application of the rules within a particular game, whether they're strictly correct or not.

OldJay

andrewdcs wrote: »

From the Times today

Seeing as all other threads discussing disciplinary decisions have been locked for descending into red v blue farce I'm sticking my neck out putting this up.

I'm more interested in the breakdown area and how its refereed.

Any views on how to manage the breakdown?
How is it working out on pitches all over the country?
No one wants more law changes, but inconsistency is very damaging to any sport.

Until referees can be cloned or roboticised, there will always be variances in what they see and they pull up more than not.
No two breakdowns are ever the same.

Only way to ref better is to ref more. Some of the best refs around had absolute howlers but without these games, would be nowhere near any of their experience today.
There will always be naturals at this but people will still argue about which of these are the tops or the dumps.

In short, there will always be a disagreement from spectators when it comes to refereeing.

andrewdcs

Justind wrote: »

Until referees can be cloned or roboticised, there will always be variances in what they see and they pull up more than not.

Personally I don't think there are "bad" referees at HEC/inter level just referees with a style of play they are used to and players can expect from them. This is the problem though with consistency, as you've got to play the opposition, AND the referee which is farcical.
Take this piece from a Kiwi after "Barnes gate" in the world cup. Barnes is not a "bad" referee so much as a referee who lets games develop a certain way. Personally I don't like his "style" but I couldn't argue with aspects of his execution of the laws because as you say, there are so many.
I enjoy games (doesn't matter who's playing) when players don't bother killing ball (no way!) as they know they'll get pinged /yellow, there are so many examples of great refereeing, see Ireland France (Nigel Owens predictably).
Referees have a bloody hard job, they are musical conductors more than umpires of a strict set of laws, and they need guidance doing that.
At the moment, if you have the right ref, are away from home and have no other ideas, you can get away with killing a game. This is awful.

I felt the LI Leinster game the other week was spoiled as a contest by bodies /hands everywhere, Leinster as often as Irish. I found it hard to spot a single non-infractious breakdown in the whole game. That was an entertaining game, but refs can encourage both sides to play.

Crash

I blame action replays to be honest. We have overly high expectations of what a single person (or three!) can actually see during a match thanks to our own hawkeye vision enabled by slowmo replays etc.