Rugby is making referees enforce ridiculous laws which turn off loyalists and casual fans
The opening weekend of the World Cup, with the eyes of the world upon our sport, should have been an unstoppable showcase of all that is great and good in rugby; of the game’s unique camaraderie and kinship, its respect and humility, its fervour and frills.
Debate should be raging: which moment will linger longest in the memory? George Ford’s 40-metre drop goal; Manie Libbok’s filthy cross-field kick; or the colossal display of France No 8 Grégory Alldritt? All contenders, but while conversation should be dominated by the prowess of Mark Nawaqanitawase and Waisea Nayacalevu, it is the likes of Jaco Peyper, Mathieu Raynal and Matthew Carley who dominate the agenda.
Those names might not be immediately discernible to the casual fan, but they are referees. Eight matches have taken place so far in the 10th edition of rugby’s global showpiece, and the moments that are lingering longest in the memory are forward passes, head shots and (a lack of) yellow cards.
It is depressing; a damning indictment of the sport that rugby has become – or, truthfully, what the law-makers and World Rugby have allowed it to become – whereby the scapegoat for every defeat, the reason for every win, the actor in a leading role for almost every match, is the referee. And it has soured the opening weekend of rugby’s blue-riband event.
None of this can be laid at the referees’ doors. World Rugby, whether the current executives or their predecessors, has engendered a sport where, at the highest level, decisions, no matter how marginal or how inconsequential to the result of a match, are put under the microscope, analysed to the nth degree, with the referee, that lone ranger who never wins, hung out to dry as a result.
In the modern-rugby zeitgeist, referees have an impossible task. This is not to sympathise with or excuse poor refereeing or decision-making. On review, it is only reasonable to suspect that Carley might wish he had brandished an extra yellow card or two in the direction of Wales on Sunday night; it would not be a stretch to say that Peyper and his officials might feel similar regret towards the forward pass for Mark Telea’s second try for New Zealand on Friday. Both of them have come in for harsh, hysterical criticism on social media.
Whether the result was affected by those mishaps is irrelevant. The fact remains that the narrative this weekend – including in England’s match against Argentina, where Tom Curry was red-carded for a high tackle – has been bulwarked by marginal refereeing blunders made by a human being who will never be flawless.
Rugby is an imperfect, chaotic sport, and the governing body’s micro-managed, corporate desperation with perfection is clashing with the tenets of the game like never before. The sport is swift, the collisions hefty; there are going to be accidents.
Technology, while bringing obvious benefits, has brought just as many negatives – mainly to be filed under ‘unintended consequences’. The increasing power and reliance on the television match official, and of the fear of erring, has meant that now we have a rugby public which, on the whole, has grown incapable of dealing with poor refereeing, expecting perfection. It will never happen.
All of this points to a far more pernicious existential crisis in rugby. If a lifelong rugby is growing sick and tired with the arcane disciplinary processes – the bunkers, KCs, and tackle schools – then what hope is there for the armchair pundit, or Heaven forbid, the new fan?
Those who saw Curry’s red card on Saturday night will have been doing so during a prime-time, Saturday night broadcasting slot – on free-to-air ITV nonetheless. The marketing footfall for rugby will have been enormous, not just in the UK, but across the whole of Europe, and if England’s victory over Argentina is anything to go by – in spite of a remarkable, against-the-odds victory – then the sport is shooting itself in the foot.
This was its moment – with a World Cup in Japan four years ago and the next in Australia in 2027, both in anti-social time zones – to market itself to the country and beyond. But that is being fudged by tough-to-digest, contradictory law directives. How can one player be red-carded for the split-second mis-timing of a genuine tackle attempt – admittedly, with the kind of technique that the game is trying to eradicate – while another receives a yellow for a reckless, back-turned charge-down which resulted in his hip clubbing another player in the head?
Getting bogged down in the minutiae of individual decisions almost undermines the broader point, however, which is that these instances are occurring in almost every match – and they have been for several years. They are a titanic turn-off to the casual fan, while even the experts struggle to rationalise them. Referees are not getting worse – these might be the most physically and even mentally developed crop ever – but the laws that they are supposed to apply certainly are.
What is the solution? There is a fear that the horse might have already bolted, that the genie is out the bottle. Employing two referees at every match was one of Eddie Jones’ theories. While that might result in fewer errors, and certainly less pressure on one set of shoulders, the issue with modern rugby is over-officialdom – so don’t give us more of it.
Strip it all back, reduce the powers of the TMO, and bin the bunker. Otherwise, in years to come, it might not be referees that dominate the World Cup’s agenda as there there might not be at World Cup at all.
