And the latest coach to eat sour grapes is....

[Bill W (2)]

I watched the Wasps game today.

Mr. Wriggleworth was no worse than other refs this season at his "interpretation" at the breakdown. Over the top, off your feet etc seemed mostly to get a warning.

Where he was incredibly bad was in allowing Wasps to "feed" the scrum put ins under the feet of the second row. Not once, not twice but repeatedly.

The breakdown is, as repeatedly observed on this forum since the start of this season, and earlier, a mess. It will IMHO remain so whilst referees ignore offences in their desire to "manage the game" and coaches only notice these events when they lose matches.

[MJ Chairman]

I watched the Wasps game today.

Mr. Wriggleworth was no worse than other refs this season at his "interpretation" at the breakdown. Over the top, off your feet etc seemed mostly to get a warning.

Where he was incredibly bad was in allowing Wasps to "feed" the scrum put ins under the feet of the second row. Not once, not twice but repeatedly.

The breakdown is, as repeatedly observed on this forum since the start of this season, and earlier, a mess. It will IMHO remain so whilst referees ignore offences in their desire to "manage the game" and coaches only notice these events when they lose matches.

Agree totally on the whole he had a reasonable game but from his positioning he wasn't even at the right height or angle to see the feeding which most of the time the Wasps 9 was putting into the second row.
Surely if a cricket umpire can go from checking for a bowler over stepping for a no ball to adjudging a lbw it is not to much for a rugby ref to check the feed at a scrum and then check off sides binding etc

[Daveyboy]

Surely if a cricket umpire can go from checking for a bowler over stepping for a no ball to adjudging a lbw it is not to much for a rugby ref to check the feed at a scrum and then check off sides binding etc

What an excellent analogy.

[dailywaffle]

Surely if a cricket umpire can go from checking for a bowler over stepping for a no ball to adjudging a lbw it is not to much for a rugby ref to check the feed at a scrum and then check off sides binding etc

What an excellent analogy.

A better analogy would be to ask the umpire to check for 'throwing' at the same time as checking for a no-ball. Or for the same line judge in tennis to check for both foot faults and net cords.

Any criticism I have of refs at scrum-time is that they do not use the AR's to full effect.

[Kinoulton]

Courtesy of Spitting Image:

I've travelled this whole world of ours from Barnsley to Peru
I've had sunstroke in the Arctic and a swim in Timbuktu
I've seen unicorns in Burma and a Yeti in Nepal
And I've danced with ten-foot pygmies in a Montezuma hall
I've met the King of China
And a working Yorkshire miner
But I've never met a nice South African

(Could not publish the rest of the lyrics on a family site.)

(Other satirical songs are available.)

[G.K]

Well I can beat that - so far I've met two nice ones. That equates to about 0.15% though.

Anyway Venter makes some valid points about the standard of reffing in the GP which is poor and has been a bugbear of many of us on this forum.

However the timing of his diatribe is somewhat unfortunate coming after a deserved loss rather than after a win. I also suspect that Saffacens have profited from poor ref decisions more often than not and as a result are having a better season than usual.

[mightymouse]

The current breakdown laws are a joke and we are often on the wrong end of poor decisions so it is nice for once to go the other way - But until the laws are changed we are going to get coaches complaining and proably a fair few sitting some weeks out in the stand as thir frustrations boil over.

[Noggs]

Is part of the problem at the breakdown the fact that we all tend to see the game with one eye.

There may be two, three or more offences occuring in quick succession and the ref should be pinging the first offence which may not be visible to the watching public (or coach). Hence, you see an oposition player joing from the side or not staying on his feet but the ref from his better vantage point has already seen your player putting hands in the ruck. You are pinged and you immediately think the ref got it wrong.

I'm as one eyed as most and there are things that could be done to clean up the breakdown area, allowing proper rucking being just one. Hopefully changes will come with time.

We have the refs we have and in the main they don't do too bad a job given the rules and directives they are working with. Venter's argument about the change (reverse) in penalty count between the first and second half is facile. Good coaches will identify problems at the break and good teams will act on the advice given to reduce their penalty count and as others have pointed out, much of the rise in the saffers count was from the scrums where we gained an increasing dominance as the game progressed.

Again, Venter only chose to raise the reffing issue in public after a couple of losses so clearly the reffing is OK if it works in your favour. In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is King

[Bill W (2)]

Is part of the problem at the breakdown the fact that we all tend to see the game with one eye.

There may be two, three or more offences occuring in quick succession and the ref should be pinging the first offence which may not be visible to the watching public (or coach). Hence, you see an oposition player joing from the side or not staying on his feet but the ref from his better vantage point has already seen your player putting hands in the ruck. You are pinged and you immediately think the ref got it wrong.

Some of this analysis is good.

However, a significant part of the problem is that the refs are not blowing the first offence. In the interests of "managing the game" they are allowing offences to go unpenenalised.

[dailywaffle]

A better analogy would be to ask the umpire to check for 'throwing' at the same time as checking for a no-ball.

FYI, the square leg umpire should be watching the bowler for throwing. At least, that's what I was taught when I did my umpiring course.

Exactly BJ.
I think you may have missed my point regarding the difficulties that officiating the scrum presents to one pair of eyes.

[Bill W (2)]

Concur jg. But "the side" seems to have a variable definition little to do with "the gate", and "the tackler" seems to be anyone of several people who were within 15ft of the tackled player when he went to ground.

[Kinoulton]

"Saracens director of rugby Brendan Venter is to face a Rugby Football Union investigation after castigating the standard of refereeing in the Guinness Premiership.

The RFU are looking into whether Venter should be charged for bringing the game into disrepute and he is set to face disciplinary action for breaking the Premiership's code of conduct."