Refs and Sarries

[wigworth]

The problem with the tackle off the ball situation, unless there is head contact involved, is that the laws are quite vague about sanctions and there are no particular directives about it that I am aware of.

9 Foul play
Principle

A player who commits foul play must either be cautioned or temporarily suspended or sent off.

.......

14. A player must not tackle an opponent who is not in possession of the ball.

So it can be either warning, yellow or red - entirely up to the ref. Unless I've missed something?

Yes but there is more to it than that in this instance as it is flagged by the ref as a late tackle, but in said tackle no arms were used at all as he hits him with his back not shoulder, also making contact with Faf's head.

[ourla]

So the stats suggest that Sarries are penalised less.

That could be because they are more disciplined - anecdotally/visually people suggest not
It could be because the refs are biased - clearly discounted
It could be pure chance - again seems unlikely over a large number of games with various refs

So that leaves:

Unconscious bias of refs?
???

[chris111]

Hard to disagree with this given the figures, and the excuses of it is not a card because the referee says it is not is pretty weak imo, with those saying this failing to provide any reason as to why it should only be a penalty and not a card.

I guess you’ll be including me in those you characterise as providing “weak excuses”. My default position is that officials have to interpret the laws of the game as they apply to countless complex decisions in every game. They don’t always get it right, but having spent 1000s of hours officiating, reviewing (individually and collectively) and reflecting on their performance, the odds are they are far more likely to be getting things right than anyone posting here.
I’d also say that my idea of a weak argument is the type that goes something like “Billy V’s offence was identical to Nadolo’s so should have had an identical sanction”. They were not identical, no two incidents on a rugby are ever going to be. Where they similar? Yes. Where they comparable? Yes. Did the referee have to consider a host of contextual factors when making a decision? Yes again. Is the referee obliged to give exactly the same sanction whenever comparable incidents occur? A resounding no.

Whilst we’re on this topic - just exactly what do posters believe lies behind the Premiership referees’ (presumably all of them, not just a few) supposedly pro-Sarries agenda? Are they all closet supporters risking their professional credibility to aid them to victory? Are they corrupt, taking stuffed brown envelopes from the owners and/or crooked bookies?

I am not sure in any of these posts in this thread you will find I have said that referees have a implicit pro Sarries agenda, I have very purposely not made such claims. Also I have never made such claims about incidents being identical and therefore deserving the same punishment, my point was that every poster on here who has pushed back against the seeming lenience in some of the decisions against Sarries has at no point explained why any of these decisions have not resulted in card when very similar incidences have been.

I will give an example so we don't get crossed up trying to talk about different things.
In the recent Sale vs Saracens game Faf de Klerk was tackled off of the ball with a tackle that did not involve any arms, what in your opinion mitigates this to only a penalty when similar offences have had yellow cards issued.
The incident occurs at 1:12 in the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt_kCsNzRUo

Apologies, Wig, I don’t think you’ve implied anything about a pro-Sarries agenda - but the thread itself has plenty of comments that do, so it was the overall tone I was taking issue with. I also don’t see much value in re-litigating incidents through endless rewatching of matches. Stuff happens, referees mostly get decisions right, sometimes get them wrong. The only thing I’m confident about is they get it right far more often than we fan forum posters would do if (god forbid) any of us were shoved into a professional match with a whistle in our hands!

[Scott1]

Ah the old "I bet you couldn't do any better" line! We are not professional referees so of course we couldn't!

[Old Hob]

Chris, you're being far too sensible. Although, if I were a DOR I would wave the stats under the ref's committee's noses. Just for info, you understand. If they were concerned no doubt they could produce a showreel of similar incidents where one was carded and one wasn't. Perhaps all this has been done already behind closed doors, who knows?

[jgriffin]

Chris, you're being far too sensible. Although, if I were a DOR I would wave the stats under the ref's committee's noses. Just for info, you understand. If they were concerned no doubt they could produce a showreel of similar incidents where one was carded and one wasn't. Perhaps all this has been done already behind closed doors, who knows?

Now that's a sensible suggestion.

[peteD]

So the stats suggest that Sarries are penalised less.

That could be because they are more disciplined - anecdotally/visually people suggest not
It could be because the refs are biased - clearly discounted
It could be pure chance - again seems unlikely over a large number of games with various refs

So that leaves:

Unconscious bias of refs?
???

I think unconscious bias plays heavily into this. Successful sides will more often get the benefit of doing. Look at our successful years, we probably got the run of the green more often hence “typical Tigers, always cheating”
More recently, our overall poor performances and initial turnaround were blighted by penalties and cards. You could quiet easily understand why last season, referees suddenly see Tigers being much more competitive and thinking’ are they doing that legally’. That probably rolled in to the start of this season too. Given our extended run of good results it would be interesting to see the split of those cards in the first and second halves of the season.
This won’t cover all of the unconscious bias, but probably add a large component.

[wigworth]

So the stats suggest that Sarries are penalised less.

That could be because they are more disciplined - anecdotally/visually people suggest not
It could be because the refs are biased - clearly discounted
It could be pure chance - again seems unlikely over a large number of games with various refs

So that leaves:

Unconscious bias of refs?
???

Given our extended run of good results it would be interesting to see the split of those cards in the first and second halves of the season.
This won’t cover all of the unconscious bias, but probably add a large component.

I will give this a bash now.

[Rugbygramps]

So the stats suggest that Sarries are penalised less.

That could be because they are more disciplined - anecdotally/visually people suggest not
It could be because the refs are biased - clearly discounted
It could be pure chance - again seems unlikely over a large number of games with various refs

So that leaves:

Unconscious bias of refs?
???

Given our extended run of good results it would be interesting to see the split of those cards in the first and second halves of the season.
This won’t cover all of the unconscious bias, but probably add a large component.

I will give this a bash now.

The impression I get is that our card count has reduced recently

[Scott1]

Maybe I'm being too harsh on poor Sarries,they've been through enough bless them. Perhaps I'm being a bit biased towards Tigers,maybe we've deserved 27 yellow cards and have got away with a few. Who knows?

[wigworth]

Given our extended run of good results it would be interesting to see the split of those cards in the first and second halves of the season.
This won’t cover all of the unconscious bias, but probably add a large component.

I will give this a bash now.

The impression I get is that our card count has reduced recently

Not really, the last 3 games we have had 1 yellow in each of those games. It is a bit deceiving as we have had 4 games where we have had 2 yellows in 1 game, we have not manged to go more than 2 games in a row without a yellow, so bet accordingly .

[Rugbygramps]

I will give this a bash now.

The impression I get is that our card count has reduced recently

Not really, the last 3 games we have had 1 yellow in each of those games. It is a bit deceiving as we have had 4 games where we have had 2 yellows in 1 game, but we have not manged to go more than 2 games in a row without a yellow, so bet accordingly .

Impressions can be deceiving Maybe it’s the old adage better a card than a try. I seem to think we are one of the teams with the least points conceded during a card. Though with my memory who knows

[wigworth]

The impression I get is that our card count has reduced recently

Not really, the last 3 games we have had 1 yellow in each of those games. It is a bit deceiving as we have had 4 games where we have had 2 yellows in 1 game, but we have not manged to go more than 2 games in a row without a yellow, so bet accordingly .

Impressions can be deceiving Maybe it’s the old adage better a card than a try. I seem to think we are one of the teams with the least points conceded during a card. Though with my memory who knows

That will be going well beyond my remit, you will have to wait for a commentator to bring it up, but given our record it seems likely.

[Tiglon]

I do feel that a lot of our yellow cards are for silly errors rather than just preventing tries. Nothing to back that up, I may be completely wrong.

I think Sarries are very good at judging when and where to give away penalties. And, yes, they have been fortunate over the last few weeks to escape more cards.

Sometimes it is just coincidence. To really establish a bias (conscious or otherwise) towards Sarries you'd need to do quite a lot of analysis of decisions by each referee for each team and compare similarities/differences between incidents. Even then, your conclusion would contain lots of ifs and buts.

Also worth bearing in mind that we are all human beings, just like the referees, and therefore we are also vulnerable to bias. I would suggest that Saracens having a low yellow card count fits quite nicely into a lot of Tigers fans' biases.

[DeadlyDunc]

I fully imagine that any DoR of a team in the top 6 will indeed point out the discrepancy in cards given to Sarries and note it to the relevant persons and PRL referees and ask for an opinion.

Leading into the play offs it might not change much but even if it’s means refs look a things just a little bit more carefully on a 50/50 it will be a marginal gain for Sarries opponents.

It’s the sort of thing the masters of the mind games like Fergie, Mourinho, Klopp etc do in their media conferences even if it just deflects media attention to the opposition for a week leading into a big game and forces the opposition to answer questions and creates a distraction they have to deal with in the process.