Officiating in the Pro12...disgraceful

thomond2006

Yes this is a reactionary thread to the events that took place during the Munster game but this has been an issue for ages.

You rarely hear of poor officiating in the Premiership or Top14, yet our mickey mouse league cares not for such standards.

This sort of thing has been going on for years in the Pro12, mainly down to refs like Allan who don't have the cajones to make big calls. 3 penalties given away by Ospreys in the scrums on their line and no yellow card or penalty try. Ospreys had also given away a plethora of penalties in the last 20 yet no yellow card for persistent infringement. Yes, this is the same referee who called Ireland vs Wales 'lineoutgate' wrong as a touch judge and then he was never seen again officiating at a test match. Why can't Celtic Rugby drop lads who are underperforming and get in refs maybe from England that can actually ref?

The league is getting ruined by this ****e, either by refs who don't have a clue or refs that like the sound of their own voice.

PhatPiggins wrote:

13 penalties in the second half for the Ospreys and no yellow card

4 scrum penalties and 3 resets 5 metres from the line, no penalty try, no yellow card and no reset when Botha losses his feet. Thats about as bad as it gets.

Phatpiggins sums it up well, what a joke.

Bring back Alan Lewis for God's sake....

Samich

Ah.

If he was so bad he wouldn't have got to that level in the first place.

Refs are human. Why don't you try and be a ref and see how easy it is!

Fishooks12

200/1 accumulator was resting on a Munster victory

I was celebrating after what I thought was a definite penalty try until I saw he'd just given another penalty

Not to mention he let the Ospreys do as they please all over the park and pinged Munster at every chance

He should be ashamed, I hate ref bashing but that was disgraceful

thomond2006

Samich wrote: »

Refs are human. Why don't you try and be a ref and see how easy it is!

I appreciate that fact. I don't take pleasure in bashing refs.

My main annoyance that refs are not being punished for poor performance. If a player does badly over a significant period, he's dropped. Why shouldn't it be different for referees, they are paid as well.

shuffol

Whats prompted this outburst then?

Scottish officials are tripe though.

CatFromHue

thomond2006 wrote: »

You rarely hear of poor officiating in the Premiership or Top14, yet our mickey mouse league cares not for such standards.

You hear it all the time from those leagues. Chabal was banned for commenting in his book on what he thought were poor refs in the Top 14. Cockerill was giving out today about Tuilagi being sent off for what he thought was doing nothing. Cockerill now starts every sentence with "well I better be carefull here" when asked about a controversial ref decision as he has given out so much about them.

bleg

http://www.rabodirectpro12.com/about/index.php

Tell them!

DDC1990

Samich wrote: »

Ah.

If he was so bad he wouldn't have got to that level in the first place.

Refs are human. Why don't you try and be a ref and see how easy it is!

Its not a question of being human, its doing your job.

If he's not capable of making simple judgements through ineptitude or bias, then he shoudln't be a "Top Level" referee.

He gave the Ospreys 5 minutes of last warnings and chances, and at the first Munster slip he gives the penalty the other way.

A yellow card with Munsters dominance meant an almost assured push over/penalty try.

That would have almost certainly been game over.

Missing the odd knock on, or forward pass is excusable.

Ignoring repeat infringements is not Human Error. Its terrible judgement.

Varley gets a yellow card for rucking down once, with the tow of his boot on an Osprey player lying on the wrong side.

The Osprey Prop had 4 penalties against him, and stayed on to "Win" that penalty in the scrum.

RuggieBear

yeah allan was his usual poor self but the real problem is the game is simply too difficult to ref these days.


The majority of breakdowns could be penalised either for hands in ruck, pulling down mauls, falling on wrongside, players leaving feet. In the interests of actually having a game most offences are ignored.

Scrums are as bad. they are impossible to ref. there is too much going on... again nearly every scrum could be penalised one way or another...crooked feed, binding on arms, boring, wheeling, backrow not bound. Most things usually ignored simply to allow play to go on.

all of this interpretation means that the refs simply can not be consistent.

yimrsg

To concede 4 penalties in 5m scrums and not give up a penalty try is baffling, especially after the 2nd one he calls over captain and prop and says that if you concede another "you know what will happen".

I think after the 3rd penalty he even called over all 6 front rowers and spent the majority of the time talking, looking directly at the Ospreys players whilst Botha was nonchalantly picking clumps of muck off his boots.

Completely agree that scrums are naturally ambiguous but there was more than sufficient grounds to award a penalty try to Munster, which would have secured the win.

Reactionary thread? Maybe.
Questionable refereeing? Definitely.

donfers

RuggieBear wrote: »

yeah allan was his usual poor self but the real problem is the game is simply too difficult to ref these days.


The majority of breakdowns could be penalised either for hands in ruck, pulling down mauls, falling on wrongside, players leaving feet. In the interests of actually having a game most offences are ignored.

Scrums are as bad. they are impossible to ref. there is too much going on... again nearly every scrum could be penalised one way or another...crooked feed, binding on arms, boring, wheeling, backrow not bound. Most things usually ignored simply to allow play to go on.

all of this interpretation means that the refs simply can not be consistent.

I agree with this and it's my key problem with rugby - the referee is just too damn important, unlike other sports where referees/umpires make the odd decisive decision, in rugby the ref makes about 30-40 decisions a game that could be down to his interpretation alone and about 5-10 absolutely key decisions each game, it's tiring and exhausting to watch, not knowing what way he'll call it, watching a team go through phase after phase and beat up another team only to get to the line and see a dodgy 50/50 call go against them, and of course there are the multitude of non-decisions where offenses take place but nothing is done about it, even though the referee may have penalised the other team for exactly the same offense

the rugby world cup final put me off rugby to a large degree, i lost faith in it after that a bit, i still watch the odd game, watched the second half of the game tonight, could have got all enraged and upset by that joker of a ref but you know what, it's getting to the stage where I am expecting that kid of buffoonery from the officials and the game is suffering because of it, why bother when the referee is almost always the most important figure on the pitch and has the most influence on the result?

rje66

fishooks12

Not to mention he let the Ospreys do as they please all over the park and pinged Munster at every chance

Thomond2006

3 penalties given away by Ospreys in the scrums on their line and no yellow card or penalty try. Ospreys had also given away a plethora of penalties in the last 20 yet no yellow card for persistent infringement.

were you lads watching the same match;)

but have to agree he was poor...

BUT in his defence, during the TMO/knock on/try debacle these things are very difficult to see in real time and players poss obscuring his view, AR could have been a bit more use to him too

PhatPiggins

I can live with a bad ref as long as he's consistently bad i.e. he makes the same wrong call consistently. At least then players can adjust to him and its fair on both sides. Allen changed his interpretation from situation to situation

He's basically an oxygen thief on the pitch.

Redsock

Samich wrote: »

Ah.

If he was so bad he wouldn't have got to that level in the first place.

Refs are human. Why don't you try and be a ref and see how easy it is!

I am a ref and as a fraternity we ref's are loathe to criticise other peepers but that being said, Peter Allan has to be one of the worst referees I have ever seen.

May just be nothing more than a coincidence but he is particularly bad when it comes to Irish teams and tonight was no exception.

Redsock

By the by Rolland was excellent last night at Ravers which proves that our league has one of, if not the best in the game.

PhatPiggins

Redsock wrote: »

I am a ref and as a fraternity we ref's are loathe to criticise other peepers but that being said, Peter Allan has to be one of the worst referees I have ever seen.

May just be nothing more than a coincidence but he is particularly bad when it comes to Irish teams and tonight was no exception.

Worse then the Changelang brothers ?

Amazotheamazing

Munster were poor tonight so the loss is deserved but consistently the Scottish refs are useless, or if not useless, operating to different priorities than Irish and Welsh ones, who at least seem to be consistent.

CouchSmart

As annoying as bad refereeing is, bad decisions tend to even out over time. Didn't see Munster's game today but I'm sure there's been times in the past were they've gotten lots of questionable decisions go their way, as have every team.

Amazotheamazing

CouchSmart wrote: »

As annoying as bad refereeing is, bad decisions tend to even out over time. Didn't see Munster's game today but I'm sure there's been times in the past were they've gotten lots of questionable decisions go their way, as have every team.

Oh yeah, we won a game against Cardiff where they must have had 80% possession a few weeks ago and we were fairly brutal.

kevinh2011

Ye sound like Northampton fans blaming about the ref for losing the match. Yes the ref was bad but Munster didn't do anything to merit winning that match tonight. Very poor performance against a severely understrength Ospreys team. Very worried for next week

phog

kevinh2011 wrote: »

Ye sound like Northampton fans blaming about the ref for losing the match. Yes the ref was bad but Munster didn't do anything to merit winning that match tonight. Very poor performance against a severely understrength Ospreys team. Very worried for next week

I think most fans who have complained about the ref tonight acknowledged that Munster played poorly.

Did you see the game? Do you think the ref had a good game tonight?

porterbelly

CouchSmart wrote: »

As annoying as bad refereeing is, bad decisions tend to even out over time. Didn't see Munster's game today but I'm sure there's been times in the past were they've gotten lots of questionable decisions go their way, as have every team.

When watching the ref bottle that decision tonight, I distinctly remember a very wet night in the Sportsground last year when Munster were on the opposite end of a similiar situation. We were 5 down in the last minute and had a 5 metre scrum on the Munster line for which they collapsed twice and on the 3rd scrum we had them going backwards at the rate of knots with McComish about to touch the ball down at the base when they collapsed again for which no penalty try was given.

Karma tonight possibly

kevinh2011

phog wrote: »

I think most fans who have complained about the ref tonight acknowledged that Munster played poorly.

Did you see the game? Do you think the ref had a good game tonight?

Yes i did watch the game, which i thought it was pretty obvious from my post and my post also said the same that both the ref and munster were very poor.

profitius

Lads we know referees are biased in favour of Munster some times. Nobody is saying otherwise and its besides the point.

The ref tonight was a joke. Reminded me of some of Poites performances against Munster and Ireland and the biased ref in the world cup final.

phog

kevinh2011 wrote: »

Yes i did watch the game, which i thought it was pretty obvious from my post and my post also said the same that both the ref and munster were very poor.

So what's your point on this thread?

Is it poor referring decisions should go unmentioned as they may well be balanced out over the course of a season? Peter Allan hasn't a H/C game in round 3 or 4 would that have anything to do with his blunder in the 6Ns game or games like he reffed tonight?

kevinh2011

phog wrote: »

So what's your point on this thread?

Is it poor referring decisions should go unmentioned as they may well be balanced out over the course of a season? Peter Allan hasn't a H/C game in round 3 or 4 would that have anything to do with his blunder in the 6Ns game or games like he reffed tonight?

Point is that munster didn't deserve much of a return out of this game, they were very poor so all this giving out about a poor ref just sounds like sour grapes. Munster have both benefitted and suffered from poor refereeing in the past and i didn't see anyone posting any threads about the poor standard of refereeing in the HC after the Northampton match, it's ok when we win but not when we lose.

thomond2006

http://www.rabodirectpro12.com/matchcentre/4273.php

Interestingly Peter Allan played prop...

Shelflife

kevinh2011 wrote: »

phog wrote: »

So what's your point on this thread?

Is it poor referring decisions should go unmentioned as they may well be balanced out over the course of a season? Peter Allan hasn't a H/C game in round 3 or 4 would that have anything to do with his blunder in the 6Ns game or games like he reffed tonight?

Point is that munster didn't deserve much of a return out of this game, they were very poor so all this giving out about a poor ref just sounds like sour grapes. Munster have both benefitted and suffered from poor refereeing in the past and i didn't see anyone posting any threads about the poor standard of refereeing in the HC after the Northampton match, it's ok when we win but not when we lose.

Allen was poor tonight. Ospreys try although the correct result was incorrectly given. Allen had blown his Whistle and stopped play before the ball was touched down. You cant let play continue after you blow the whistle.

Numerous pens in the scrum 5m out do not mean a pen try should be given; you oly award a pen try when a try would prob have been scored, at no stage did munster appear likely to score a try.
However there were imo enough pens at that stage to warrant a yellow card esp after warning the ospreys front row

Basically he copped out.

That been said why ogara kicked the ball away when they needed a try is beyond me,

CIARAN_BOYLE

After the 3rd scrum penalty someone POM/POC asked about a penalty try and the referee said you have to be going forward which is understandable if you aren't going forward you are just camped there and there is no threat of try and thus no penalty try

That said he was poor through the night.

tolosenc

Ref was awful but I don't think either side was victimised by him.

There's only about 3 or 4 decent refs in the leafue and they're all Irish or Nigel Owens, which means we rarely get them.

Podge_irl

A couple of points.

First, Allan didn't make the call on the Munster yellow card, it was a touch judge call. So it's pointless to use that as a basis for comparison with his other decisions.

Second, there is absolute no basis in the law for giving a penalty try for repeat infringements at a Scrum V. It irritates me greatly when commentators start prattling on about that. They're simply wrong. A penalty try is for when a try would probably have been scored if not for the infringement. That would require a scrum motoring forward when it's brought down. He should, however, have thought about going for a yellow.

Third, you do hear about poor officiating in the Premiership and T14. Coaches complain about it reasonably constantly (as they are inclined to do). We just don't, in general, watch those games as often and are not as emotionally invested in them so don't care about the poor officiating as much. The PRO12 Unions have some of the best refs around - Rolland, Owens are excellent, Lewis is pretty good. The lack of quality Scottish refs is a concern. Plenty of sub-international standard refs (and plenty of refs I've frankly never heard of) in the other leagues too.

Robbo

That was Allan's 46th Pro12/Magners game. Generally Munster have a ref for league games with an average of 26 Pro12/Magners.

This is a raw mean. Not weighted.

It is also top of a table which appears here.

I guess the moral of the story is, you can't have Nigel for every game, you generally have to put up with a rubbish ref here and there. Fortunately, this rarely happens in Limerick.

Losty Dublin

Podge_irl wrote: »

A couple of points.

First, Allan didn't make the call on the Munster yellow card, it was a touch judge call. So it's pointless to use that as a basis for comparison with his other decisions.

Second, there is absolute no basis in the law for giving a penalty try for repeat infringements at a Scrum V. It irritates me greatly when commentators start prattling on about that. They're simply wrong. A penalty try is for when a try would probably have been scored if not for the infringement. That would require a scrum motoring forward when it's brought down. He should, however, have thought about going for a yellow.

Third, you do hear about poor officiating in the Premiership and T14. Coaches complain about it reasonably constantly (as they are inclined to do). We just don't, in general, watch those games as often and are not as emotionally invested in them so don't care about the poor officiating as much. The PRO12 Unions have some of the best refs around - Rolland, Owens are excellent, Lewis is pretty good. The lack of quality Scottish refs is a concern. Plenty of sub-international standard refs (and plenty of refs I've frankly never heard of) in the other leagues too.

+1 on all of this.

ed7890

Ref was poor tonight, and might have cost us a bit, but we were ****e and really should have done better.

BionicRasher

Poor decisions by the ref cost Munster maybe 5 points and gave Ospreys 5 points. So no matter how bad Munster played the ref cost them the game.
It's not really about deserving the win its just about the win and if he made the right calls Munster would have won.

phog

kevinh2011 wrote: »

Point is that munster didn't deserve much of a return out of this game, they were very poor so all this giving out about a poor ref just sounds like sour grapes. Munster have both benefitted and suffered from poor refereeing in the past and i didn't see anyone posting any threads about the poor standard of refereeing in the HC after the Northampton match, it's ok when we win but not when we lose.

I dealt with some of the issues around Nigel Owens and his reffing of the Saints game in that match thread so I'm not going to rehash it here. BTW, he tweeted his reasons for his decisions, it might be worth a read for those of you who feel he sided with Munster.

I've always had a issue with the likes of James Jones, David & Malcolm Changleng brothers (thankfully, now retired or confined to TMO duties) and now it looks like Peter Allan is joining their ranks. His decisons weren't just a missed knock-on or an offside, he made fundamental erros in his officiating of the game.

Podge_irl wrote: »

A couple of points.

First, Allan didn't make the call on the Munster yellow card, it was a touch judge call. So it's pointless to use that as a basis for comparison with his other decisions.

.

True, not sure how many are disagreeing with you.

Second, there is absolute no basis in the law for giving a penalty try for repeat infringements at a Scrum V. It irritates me greatly when commentators start prattling on about that. They're simply wrong. A penalty try is for when a try would probably have been scored if not for the infringement. That would require a scrum motoring forward when it's brought down. He should, however, have thought about going for a yellow.

Technically true again about the Laws and awarding a penalty try but if he should have done a lot more than think about a card, he sould have issued one and why penalise a prop for missing his footing or whatever term he used at the time?

My gripe is that the League deserves better officials and citing commisioners/panels, it's our bread and butter and is treated poorly by the competition organisers. As I've already stated earlier it's no suprise that Allan doesn't have a game in Round 3 or 4 of the H/C.

OldRio

Awful, awful referee.
He blew his whistle before Ospreys scored the 'knock on' try.
He blew the fecking whistle.
Play to the whistle is what you tell players.

padraig.od

Whats Niges twitter account?

Spektor

thomond2006 wrote: »

I appreciate that fact. I don't take pleasure in bashing refs.

My main annoyance that refs are not being punished for poor performance. If a player does badly over a significant period, he's dropped. Why shouldn't it be different for referees, they are paid as well.

But would that sort out the problem? Because the replacement ref might not be as good as the one who is dropped, they could make mistakes asweel.
There is not a lot of world class referees.

danthefan

Interesting thread this. Seems all out criticism of refs, when the ref has performed very poorly and make no mistake about it, is alright in some situations while it's "pathetic" and biased and bitter etc etc etc in others.

Foxtrol

OldRio wrote: »

Awful, awful referee.
He blew his whistle before Ospreys scored the 'knock on' try.
He blew the fecking whistle.
Play to the whistle is what you tell players.

Allen blowing the whistle didn't make a jot of difference to whether a Munster player would have stopped the try from being scored. It would have been a travesty if that try had not been given and by complaining that it wasn't stopped just shows that you're happy for the ref to make terrible decision once it favours your side.

Munster have been playing the 5m scrum lottery a hell of a lot recently and it was only a matter of time before it went badly for them, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

As someone said earlier I didn't see this sort of thread from Munster fans when a ref makes a string of "poor" calls in Thomond that favoured them (Northampton this year and Leinster regular season game last year are just two examples off the top of my head). Maybe if they did non-Munster fans might be respecting these opinions a bit more.

GerM

thomond2006 wrote: »

You rarely hear of poor officiating in the Premiership or Top14, yet our mickey mouse league cares not for such standards.

Go on to the fan forums of their teams. There are as many complaints about the referees there as in the Pro12. Officials from the Pro12 nations regularly referee games in the AP and, as we saw during the week with Peter Fitzgibbon, the T14.

There is nothing massively unique about the standard of refereeing overall in the Pro12 relative to other leagues.

OldRio

Foxtrol wrote: »

by complaining that it wasn't stopped just shows that you're happy for the ref to make terrible decision once it favours your side.



Munster have been playing the 5m scrum lottery a hell of a lot recently and it was only a matter of time before it went badly for them, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.


As someone said earlier I didn't see this sort of thread from Munster fans when a ref makes a string of "poor" calls in Thomond that favoured them (Northampton this year and Leinster regular season game last year are just two examples off the top of my head). Maybe if they did non-Munster fans might be respecting these opinions a bit more.

A couple of points if I may.
'your side' No my dear friend, Munster are not my side. I keep out of the pathetic bitching between Munster and Leinster fans. Unlike some I can make my mind up without blinkers on.
The try was fine. No doubt about that BUT the whistle had been blown. That is a fact. Allan screwed up.
I think you are showing your true colours. As long as things go against Munster you are happy.
Sad.

decisions

I think what a lot of Pro12 refs need is to grow a pair every so often, and not just give 5 final warnings. It is part of what sets top refs apart, they all make mistakes, they all have off days and there is not a ref in world rugby that misses nothing but top refs can all say right that's enough and pull out a card.

Foxtrol

OldRio wrote: »

A couple of points if I may.
'your side' No my dear friend, Munster are not my side. I keep out of the pathetic bitching between Munster and Leinster fans. Unlike some I can make my mind up without blinkers on.
The try was fine. No doubt about that BUT the whistle had been blown. That is a fact. Allan screwed up.
I think you are showing your true colours. As long as things go against Munster you are happy.
Sad.

I made the assumption that only a fan of the team that would benefit from a poor ref call would actually want a legitimate try to be called back due to a reffing error. Why would you "a neutral" such as yourself want that?

Your "play the whistle" comment was simply wrong. It had no bearing on whether the try was scored or not as no Munster player pulled out of a tackle because of it. The ref was wrong to blow it up in the first place and wrong to give the try after he had blown the whistle but fortunately in this situation two wrongs did make a right.

You are the one thats bringing Leinster into this. Im making these comments a neutral watching last nights match. Why the hell are you trying to turn this into a "Munster/Leinster" thing?

Cpt_Blackbeard

Allen just doesn't have the balls to be a professional ref. He made a huge decision when he disallowed Fussel's try but, he immediately backtracked when he saw how irate Fussel was. The right decision was made in the end but, it shouldn't have stood. Fussel was lucky to not get a yellow for screaming at the touch judge and telling him to go to the TMO.

I'm happy that Webb's try stood as we'll learn from that but, had Allen been awake/had the ability to make a big decision, it wouldn't have. It should help Zebo's development though.

He completely bottled it with the 5m scrum too - How the Ospreys TH didn't get a yellow is beyond me. He then gave the easy decision against Munster when the first chance arose. How it was a penalty/freekick for BjB losing his footing is rdiculous too. Any casual fan could tell you that it should have been a reset.

danthefan

Cpt_Blackbeard wrote: »

Allen just doesn't have the balls to be a professional ref. He made a huge decision when he disallowed Fussel's try but, he immediately backtracked when he saw how irate Fussel was. The right decision was made in the end but, it shouldn't have stood. Fussel was lucky to not get a yellow for screaming at the touch judge and telling him to go to the TMO.

The logic here is just so ridiculously backwards. You're managing to argue that a perfectly legitimate try should have been disallowed.

decisions

danthefan wrote: »

The logic here is just so ridiculously backwards. You're managing to argue that a perfectly legitimate try should have been disallowed.

No he is saying that the ref made a call and he should have stuck with it and not let the players influence his call as much as it did

OldRio

Foxtrol wrote: »

I made the assumption that only a fan of the team that would benefit from a poor ref call would actually want a legitimate try to be called back due to a reffing error. Why would you "a neutral" such as yourself want that?

Your "play the whistle" comment was simply wrong. It had no bearing on whether the try was scored or not as no Munster player pulled out of a tackle because of it. The ref was wrong to blow it up in the first place and wrong to give the try after he had blown the whistle but fortunately in this situation two wrongs did make a right.

You are the one thats bringing Leinster into this. Im making these comments a neutral watching last nights match. Why the hell are you trying to turn this into a "Munster/Leinster" thing?

'Play to the whistle was wrong......'
No it isn't. That is what you teach children and players of any sport.
The try was correct but the whistle had been blown.

As for the I'm bringing Leinster into it
'Thomond that favoured them (Northampton this year and Leinster regular season game last year are just two examples off the top of my head).'
Your words not mine.
The ref had a shocker.I have given examples.
.

danthefan

decisions wrote: »

No he is saying that the ref made a call and he should have stuck with it and not let the players influence his call as much as it did

He shouldn't have made the call in the first place.

decisions

danthefan wrote: »

He shouldn't have made the call in the first place.

I know that, but he did and then swiftly backtracked.