Fair and responsible?

The Sharks played the Blue Bulls in Durban last Saturday, a fascinating match which the Sharks won 29-10. Naturally there was a match report in the Sunday Tribune. We wonder at some of it.

Much has been said about the need for referees to be transparent and accountable, and South African referees have taken steps in that regard. Further, it is usual for referees to remain silent under fire from critics, but the Sunday Tribune report may just go two steps too far.

It is always dangerous to take up arms against anybody whose main weapon is a barrel of ink. Wisely we are not taking up arms – just wondering at the wisdom and fairness of what has been said.

Most of the report is about the referee and the crowd’s attitude to him.

Let’s look at the unwise first.

“It certainly was the strangest of games. There was a moment shortly before half-time that seemed to sum up the battle. A furious Sharks fan rose to his feet in the middle of the grandstand and screamed: ‘Where is Piet van Zyl (the oke who tackled the ref her in a Tri-Nations game in 2002) when you need him?’

“The roar of laughter and the murmurings of assent were an indication of the foul mood in the Absa Stadium after the local team had dominated the Bulls yet had little advantage on the scoreboard.

“For at least 30 minutes of the half, the champions hung on for dear life and were reduced to blatant cheating to prevent the Sharks from scoring.

“They crashed in from the sides of rucks, they dived in off their feet, they did whatever they could to slow/kill the ball.

“A streetwise rugby fan would credit the Bulls for getting away with it; a Sharks fan, such as the fellow who invoked the spirit of referee-tackler Piet, felt that Mark Lawrence should have spent less time warning the Bulls and more time handing out yellow cards to them.”

There is more but there is enough in this to cause serious concern.

The first area of concern is recalling the action of Piet van Zyl on Dave McHugh which earned Van Zyl an ignominious place in rugby’s history and a fine of R10 000 (or 30 days in jail) when found guilty of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm. It was embarrassment for South African rugby. But the spirit of the Sunday Tribune article seems to find such behaviour laudable. Pieter van Zyl is seen as some sort of hero, a man to be copied. That’s not good. It’s not good anywhere in the world but more so in South Africa where unpleasant actions against referees are endemic. One could say more about this but at best it is irresponsible and unnecessary.

Concerned about the report on the referee and being unattached to either team, we went through each and every tackle/ruck in those first 30 minutes to see how much coming in the sides there was and how much diving in and any actions which could have warranted the yellow card and how much warning Blue Bulls the referee did. In other words we tried to do a fact check.

There were 28 tackle/rucks when the Sharks were ball-carriers. We could go boringly through every single one of those tackles, for example:

1. Sykes tackled – ball straight out
2. Tackle/ruck – Engels penalised for diving in and using his hands illegally
3. Kuun tackled Du Plessis and rolled away. The ball came out.
4. Gerber tackled Murray and rolled away. The ball came out.

An so on for 28 tackles in 30 minutes.

17. Wannenburg tackles Mtawarira and does not roll away, perhaps because Ackermann and Sykes fall on him. In any case the ball came back quickly to Barritt who grubbered into touch-in-goal.
18. After Cilliers had collected an overthrown line-out and been tackled the referee stopped play because the ball was unplayable. He said to the Blue Bulls: “I am giving you the benefit of the doubt – but not all game.”
19. Powell tackles Ndungane and Ndungane moves beyond him. The ball comes back to the Sharks and Powell, getting up as if dazed, is in the way but the ball is cleared.

22. Wannenburg tackles Ndungane and does not roll away, possibly because Ackermann is on top of him. The referee penalises Wannenburg.

26. Sykes slaps the ball back at an attacking line-out and Botes gathers the ball. He is tackled by Stegmann and goes to ground. On his feet Stegmann wins the ball back for the Blue Bulls but drops it. Lying on the ground Botes reaches out and claws the ball back to the Sharks’ side. The referee is on the far side of the tackle/ruck and play goes on.

That was the one which the referee missed.

27. Nel tackles Ndungane and the Blue Bulls are winning a turnover. The referee calls: “Leave it, Black. Black 4.”
28. Du Plessis wins a turn-over going left and Steyn tackles Kockott. The Sharks are clearly winning the ball when Venter falls on the tackle area. Strictly speaking Venter is penalisable but his action had no material effect at all because the Sharks were winning the ball. This is the only clear example of such an action in the first 30 minutes of the match.

There is no evidence of Blue Bulls diving in during the 30 minutes which the article speaks of. The only incidence of diving in was penalised. The one occasion when the tackler did not roll away and the ball did not come back quickly was penalised. There seemed no further reason to penalise the Blue Bulls in that half or warn them, let alone give a yellow card. There was no evidence at all of “blatant cheating”.

In the first half the Blue Bulls were penalised twice at the tackle. In the second half they were penalsied three times – once for coming in at the side (Roets), once for sealing off on their own ball (Milton) and once for holding on (Wannenburg).

The referee did not issue any “warnings” at all in those 30 minutes.

A warning is a formal thing in law. The referee calls time-out and then brings the captain or captains and makes it clear that his next action is a serious one. This did not happen. For the individual player the law requires that the guilty player be admonished. This also did not happen. The next step is a caution which includes a yellow card.

Referees use communication to manage the match. One should not confuse communication, which may include encouragement to conform, with a warning. The referee encouraged Du Plessis of the Sharks and Milton of the Blue Bulls to behave. That was not a warning, but it was the nearest to a warning in the 30 minutes in question, closer than the bit of chat about the benefit of the doubt.

Number 27. above is an example of a referee’s encouragement to conform. It is the only clear such example in the 30 minutes, and Sykes apparently did as he was told, and play went on.

There are other aspects of the article which one could debate.

An article of this nature is saddening. Lots of people will take it as fact, which it is not. Some may see in it an incentive to be rude – or worse – to the next referee they disagree with.

The fact of this matter is that the referee, Mark Lawrence, refereed a match of several remarkable incidents and lots of intensity remarkably well. There was so much else in the match that was worth reporting.