Which ref do you want? Part 2

Recently we had an article asking people which referee they wanted. It produced a lot of comment from readers at this time when referees are so much in the spotlight – much too much in fact for one man should not dominate the 31-man game.

The comments highlighted problems and possible solutions.

Problems included the system, lack of consistency, the complexity of the laws, a game taht is too fast, bias in favour of the All Blacks, a lack of IRB leadership, only one Australian referee, the poor quality of top referees in modern times, not enforcing existing laws, the IRB’s location in Ireland and Paddy O’Brien.

Solutions included use of technology, appointing specialised assistant referees who are fast, public accountability, getting referees from other countries like Japan and Argentina, reducing the time of yellow cards to five minutes, allowing the TMO to intervene while the referee is discussing foul play with an assistant, putting more lines on the field to help the referee with forward passes, having referees cited and banned if guilty, and calling in the TMO if a card is to be used,

Nobody said which referee he wanted, which was the question. We can talk about the whole process of review that referees go through for every top match with at least four documents in writing for each match. We shall talk about the effect of speed of the game this week. Complexity of the laws is an issue worth talking about, too, though we have just gone through the most elaborate, transparent and inclusive process of changing the laws. You watch the soccer World Cup ad see a game where the laws are simple and still there are loud complaints about the referee.

But let’s get down to choice. From the comments it seems that there is a negative choice – the unwanted referees. But we are going to choose referees we want, a positive choice.

Paddy O’Brien and his men have no control over the laws being played and they have to abide by the rules of a competition which have a say in appointments in general terms, e.g. nationalities excluded from a game on the grounds of national attachment.

But Paddy O’Brien and his men cannot sit down and simply say we have a problem or discuss long-term solutions. They have to appoint specific referees for specific matches – put names down.

For the Tri-Nations they had to do this for a dozen matches.

Let’s try to do it as well. Leave out assistant referees – and one of those needs to be capable of taking over from a referee at any time during a match. Just put a name. To make it easier and to accommodate the suggestion of widening the scope, do not confine yourself to the 13 referees that were available to O’Brien and his men. But as a matter of interest those 13 were Wayne Barnes (England), Christophe Berdos (France), George Clancy (Ireland), Marius Jonker (South Africa), Craig Joubert (South Africa), Jonathan Kaplan (South Africa), Bryce Lawrence (New Zealand), Mark Lawrence (South Africa), Alan Lewis (Ireland), Nigel Owens (Wales), Stuart Dickinson (Australia), Dave Pearson (England), Alain Rolland (Ireland).

Here are the matches, make the appointments. Like O’Brien and his men this time write down names of people because people have to referee matches:

New Zealand vs South Africa in Auckland
Referee:

New Zealand vs South Africa in Wellington
Referee:

Australia vs South Africa in Brisbane
Referee:

Australia vs New Zealand in Melbourne
Referee:

New Zealand vs Australia in Christchurch
Referee:

South Africa vs New Zealand in Soweto
Referee:

South Africa vs Australia in Pretoria
Referee:

South Africa vs Australia in Bloemfontein
Referee:

Australia vs New Zealand in Sydney
Referee: