Punish the player. Don’t punish the fans. Match officials are handing out red and yellow cards as if they are advertising flyers. It is destroying the game of rugby.
My hope, as a rugby-loving fan, who has been blessed to write about the sport professionally for the past 35 years, is that the team that wins the Rugby World Cup wins it because of the collective playing ability of 15 players, playing against 15 players for the duration of the match.
The card system, so liberally employed by match officials, is influencing the outcomes of matches more than the try-scoring talents or goal kicking excellence.
The biggest loser is the rugby supporter, who has paid to watch a contest or who has invested emotionally in time and energy to watch it through a broadcast. So many matches these days feel like robbery and there isn’t even a consistency in the robbery because it depends on who has the whistle, who is running the touchline and who is sitting in a little room in the guise of a television match official.
A player should cop the consequence of his action. His teammates should not be the victims of one individual’s thuggery or implosion. The fans should also not have to roll the dice before kickoff as to whether there will be a contest of 15 plays 15. Send the offending player off, but allow for him to be replaced to keep the numbers at 15 plays 15. You will see far less offences because the serial offenders will find themselves out of work and they will struggle to get a contract for future employment.
Rugby League, among the most physical contact and collision sports, has been a leader in the application of the card system. The player goes on report, faces a disciplinary hearing on the Monday and is suspended according to the nature of the on-field crime. The team does not suffer because of the madness of one individual. The contest continues.
The broadcaster producer becomes the most influential player because of the angles shown or not shown and the match officials get to play judge and juror on interpretation and not fact.
This past weekend was among the worst officiating in the game, up north and in the southern hemisphere’s Pacific Super Rugby competition. It was the same game being played in both hemispheres but the application of the laws was so different because everything was down to interpretation of the match officials and intervention of the TMO based on what the local broadcaster was willing to show. It was horrendous.
Forward passes were missed and it was “play on” for one team. For another, a pass was scrutinised for several minutes and slowed down to a freeze-frame in which everything looks wrong.
Players were being carded because match officials have now assumed the role of medical experts. Match officials apply their vast lay medical knowledge in determining the impact intensity of any collision. Pity the day a player drops dead in the change room after the match official has declared the contact to his temple was low in force and thus not deemed dangerous!
Damn it, it is infuriating to watch these match officials get it wrong so often in their application and it was just embarrassing for the sport’s custodians to see a referee ask a TMO to rule on a decision he had not seen, like the grounding of a ball. When the TMO gave his verdict of a try, the referee argued that he didn’t think it was a try. The two continued their very public disagreement for a few minutes before the referee conceded and awarded the try.
The broadcaster producer becomes the most influential player because of the angles shown or not shown and the match officials get to play judge and juror on interpretation and not fact. It is a disaster. All the while the fans suffer and watch 15 players look brilliant playing against 14 and, at times, 13 players.
Rugby’s global leadership surely can’t ignore the obvious any more and see how the lethal cocktail of incompetence, bias and contrasting interpretations is ruining the sport. How do you sell a World Cup final to a global audience when you can’t guarantee that 15 will play 15 and it will be a contest? How do you sell a sport when every Monday there is an acknowledgment the match officials got it wrong — AGAIN?
You don’t and you shouldn’t have to. Give us back our game of rugby when 15 plays 15 for 80 minutes and the ill-disciplined thug of an individual is dealt with, and the contest, as a collective, is not compromised.
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