Law Discussion: 'Don't scream at me'

The referee awards a scrum. Then suddenly blows sharply on his whistle and says to a player: ‘Don’t scream at me. Scream at me like that again and you are off.’ Then he penalises the player’s side.

All right?

Saracens play Racing-Métro. Alain Rolland, top referee, penalises Racing-Métro and then stops the game. He calls over the Saracens captain Steve Borthwick and says to him: “We’re only 10 minutes into the game and I’ve had commentary from a half a dozen of your players – telling me ‘in the side’, ‘hands on’, ‘off-side’, whatever.

“It stops now. You kill it now. Otherwise let me deal with it.

“Start with No.9 and work out.”

Borthwick talks to his men but it does not stop now.

Saracens knock on, Brad Barritt tackles Frans Steyn. The referee blows his whistle to award a scrum to Racing-Métro and then suddenly ups the blast to a penalty to Racing. He gestures the yakking sound towards Barritt. Frans Steyn kicks a penalty which takes the score to 8-6, the start of Racing’s march to victory.

All right?

Is the referee entitled to tick players off this way? Is he entitled to change a scrum into a penalty?

Law 10.4 (s) All players must respect the authority of the referee. They must not dispute the referee’s decisions. They must stop playing at once when the referee blows the whistle except at a kick-off or at a penalty kick following admonishment, temporary suspension, or send-off.
Sanction: Penalty kick

It’s part of the law and the referee is entitled to penalise. It’s even a bit more than that. Law 10 deals with Foul Play. Failing to respect the authority of the referee is a facet of foul play. That is why the referee could warn a player that he could be sent off.

Good for the game –  in what way?

It was not ever so. In the beginning there were no referees. The captains sorted out what rules/laws to play to and then decided on what happened. Human nature being what it is, they did not always agree, and so there were two umpires, one representing each team. Human nature being what it is, they did not always agree and so they brought in a man to refer to – the referee. But all of this could be a long process – captains debating and disagreeing, umpires debating and disagreeing then telling the story to the venerable old man in a wickerchair. And even then there was no end as teams could  take their dispute to the union. Imagine all that rigamarole nowadays.

The International Rugby Board then got the referee out of his chair, stuck him on the field and made him sole judge of fact and law, thus ending disputes.

Refereeing then became a silent affair – blow the whistle and exercise one of four gestures – scrum, penalty, try, drop-out. The laws stayed the same but customs changed with the introduction of ‘management’, trying to get players to cooperate. This led to many words. “In the multitude of words there shall not want sin,” Proverbs says, and many words from the referee can lead to many words by the players, but the laws do not give players the right to dispute.

But surely the captain has the right to question?

Not according to the laws but a referee needs, in the management process, to have a cooperative captain and so will have essential conversation with the captain but even then the conversation needs to be courteous. The captain could ask his question at an appropriate time and with appropriate manners.

In 1992 South Africa returned to international competition with a Test against the All Blacks in Johannesburg, and the Springboks, captained by Naas Botha, found it hard to get on with Sandy O’Neill of Australia who brushed them aside. Their next Test was in Cape Town with Dave Bishop of New Zealand to referee.

At a pre-match meeting Naas Botha asked Bishop if he would allow questions.

Bishop said: “I’ll give you, Naas Botha, the right to ask a question and I’ll give you the courtesy of an answer, and there’ll be no debate.”

Botha said: “Jannie Breedt is my captain and he’s in the forwards. He’s closer to you. Can he ask you a question.”

And Bishop said: “I repeat: I’ll give you, Naas Botha, the right to ask a question and I’ll give you the courtesy of an answer, and there’ll be no debate.” Australia won and there were no complaints about the refereeing at all.

Bishop’s answer is an excellent one.

Rugby, gone professional, has taken things from professional soccer. We now have assistant referees instead of touch judges, we have technical areas for coaches and replacements, England’s second league now hides its true identity by calling itself The Championship, we hug and kiss try-scorers, we try to persuade referees to send off errant players where before we argued to keep them on – that sort of thing. But, by and large, we have  continued to respect the referee on the field during the match and his decisions far more than soccer players do. Surely we should want to preserve that.

Then doing what Rolland did was a good thing. Stopping players from giving referees advice is also a good thing, lest the game become a noisy business and it seem that the referee is being dictated to by players.

Now there is another step.

Teams have men dotted round the field to provide first aid or refreshment to players. These are not always medical men; in fact they are often spare players or coaches. If you listen to the referee’s mike you will hear voices calling “Holding”, “Hands”, “Playing on the ground”, “Off-side”, “In the side” – that sort of things. This often comes from these backroom boys in an effort to influence the referee. It is not agreeable at all. It should not happen. For one thing it’s rotten manners.

The referee has the right to put a stop to it but stopping a game to order off a waterbearer would not be good  public relations at all. It would be better if the game’s authorities took action.

Any way – well done, Alain Rolland. You may have heard people say of a match in which there was fighting: “The referee lost control.” As if the little man with a little whistle can control emotional giants! But he is expected to do so and it starts with small things. There is no doubt that Rolland was in control and the players knew it.