After a stellar year, Nigel Owens has come under some criticism in the last week. In the Saracens-Clermont game, which he officiated, there was a selection of debatable decision. However, debatable does not mean incorrect. One of the great facets of rugby is that players accept the referees’ decision and get on with the game, spectators should do the same. Social media has changed this and allowed spectators to speak out on decisions during and after games. Nigel Owens has strong following on social media but receives stick each week from fans. It is time that spectators took a leaf out of the players’ book and got on with the game.
The decisions that were seen as debatable by the Welsh referee were all difficult calls, and if ten referees had been in the same position there could have been ten different calls. The penalty try was perhaps the most controversial; Owens gave a yellow card to Brock James and a penalty try, for deliberately knocking the ball out of play. It was certainly a turning point in the game and put Clermont into a position that they could not recover from. Owens however, was simply following the IRB guidelines. From the referees’ perspective, he did everything right. This is what makes it such a disappointing sight to see fans criticising one of the best referees in the world.
Owens did as the guidelines stipulate and used the TMO, this is something I do disagree with. In this this particular game there were so many big decisions that the TMO inevitably used heavily. This took time out of the game and spoiled the flow of a great contest. The other decision that caused controversy was the disallowed Benson Stanley try. Owens had let that stand but was called back by his assistant so that he could review it on the TMO. It was another fifty-fifty call for Owens to make on the spot.
We are now looking was ways to disallow tries with the new TMO laws going back more phases to find an infliction on the laws. The Stanley try looked good, and would have made for a far better contest as it would have made the game 14-10 to Saracens. Owens missed the incident as it happened, so if we simply went by the referees’ eyes then it would have stood. It may not have been the perfect decision, but judging by the backlash this week, neither was disallowing the try.
The officiating of games has become far too negative. Some of the best tries we see are made at full pace with some quick hands, it is almost to be expected that these passes may edge forwards at this speed. With this in mind, nobody wants to spend five minutes ‘looking at the movement of the hands’. If the TMO was just for serious incidents such as a dangerous tackle and anything within the try scoring motion we might see a more positive game.
At present there are so many ways for a try to be disallowed we are seeing teams reverting to the penalty tactic. We saw Toulon see of Munster with this tactic on the weekend. If there was more ‘reward’ for playing with flair, then we might see a more positive game, it is a spectator sport after all. The technology in rugby is a useful innovation but we must be mindful that it doesn’t go too far and spoil the beautiful simplicity of our game. Just an example to leave you on, the famous Gareth Edwards try for the Barbarians would not have been given under the new TMO laws. This try has inspired so many children to play the game and this time of play is something we could be pushing out of the game.
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