Abuse of refs is a creeping problem – rugby cannot afford to be like football
There were several high quality and entertaining games in the Premiership last weekend, but it is symptomatic of the times in which we find ourselves that the focus of some is on an officiating error, which was proclaimed on social media to be a ‘serious controversy’.
This controversy surrounds the further claim Bath’s attempted comeback against Harlequins may have been thwarted by the presence of a sin-binned player on the pitch, giving the hosts an unfair advantage. To accurately assess this claim it is necessary to look closely at the game’s timeline; what happened and when. This appears convoluted but this is the sort of detail you should examine if you are to avoid the mistake that too many people make of spotting an error and then attributing all manner of consequences to it.
In the 63rd minute of the game, Irne Herbst, a Quins substitute second row, was yellow carded for not retreating 10 metres after a penalty kick, from which Bath ultimately scored a try. He should have remained off the pitch until the 73rd minute. At 70.51, three minutes early, Herbst was back on the field and is seen standing out of a Bath lineout in the Quins’ 22. The ball was thrown over the back of the lineout to Ollie Lawrence, who was described as being “miles offside” by TV commentators. Herbst made a tackle in midfield but from that ruck Bath’s Ruaridh McConnochie scored a try. Practical effect of officials’ mistake? Nil.
Thereafter (72.10) Herbst was one of two players to make a tackle about 35 metres out from the Bath line – practical effect nil. What seems to have excised Bath is a huge tackle Herbst made at 72.33, but what everyone appears to have forgotten was that, again, he was one of two tacklers. The decisive hit, around the legs, came from Quins’ Lennox Anyanwu - so, practical effect nil.
What happened next might have had some effect, because the subsequent lineout was wrongly awarded to Quins. At that throw, Herbst won the ball when he should not have been on the pitch. However, to suggest Quins could not have fashioned a short lineout and won the ball with seven remaining forwards is speculative at best and, in any event, Danny Care kicked the ball straight back to Bath from the ensuing breakdown, giving them a counter-attack inside the Quins half.
As can be seen, the practical consequences of officiating error(s) were nil or negligible, and that does not take into account the arguable offside error that resulted in the McConnochie try. So, what explains the furore that is surrounding this? The answer is the growing trend in rugby for fans and coaches to blame every misfortune on one or two refereeing errors, whether these have been causative of anything in reality. It is a trend that is unwelcome and must be resisted if rugby is not to follow the precedent of football in blaming officials or anybody else but yourself for losing.
Blame game undermines respect for officials
The honest way of assessing the effect of any mistake should be to look at all the points you should have scored but didn’t and weigh them together with those you did concede but should not have. If the total exceeds any points that might be attributed to officials, you might have the start of a case. Even if this happens, what if the error happened early in the game? Does it really cause the loss if you failed to turn it around in the remaining time? If the error occurs when you have little or no time to respond, then you have a better case, but it is hardly ever so. When you consider the multiple mistakes teams and individual players make in every game, and they are always greater than refereeing mistakes, is that one official’s error the real cause of your loss?
If anyone connected with Bath is foolish enough to claim ‘we wuz robbed,’ was any official the cause of the team letting Quins’ Andre Esterhuizen score twice, or Marcus Smith, or Louis Lynagh, or Alex Dombrandt or Will Evans? Were they the reason that by the 47th minute Bath had conceded 40 points? Note that Quins did not register a single point from a penalty kick at goal, which cannot be defended. Are you seriously blaming the officials?
Rugby has seen where this blame game ends. It undermines respect for officials and makes it harder to recruit referees. It culminates in high-profile referees and their families getting disgusting abuse and death threats. There is nothing wrong with legitimate complaints about errors that are made, but remember they do, unfortunately, happen. To go on, as some are now doing, to blame officials for your every misfortune, however remote or de minimis, is both wrong and dishonest.
