The Quickening. 2016

[Oldschool]

It may not suit the Irish clubs in the circumstances but every game in the league next week holds a very real interest for at least one Club, e.g. even an unlikely BPW against Cardiff, could squeeze Edinburgh past Munster. From the League perspective that is a great prospect.

However, from the League perspective the officiating is poor, including TMOs, and could improve both performances and spectacle.

question is how does one improve the standard of refs? theyre supplied by the unions but work in the league (amongst other competitions) so who would pay for them to eg all be able to go full time?

Question why are the reffing standards so poor?

[curates_egg]

It may not suit the Irish clubs in the circumstances but every game in the league next week holds a very real interest for at least one Club, e.g. even an unlikely BPW against Cardiff, could squeeze Edinburgh past Munster. From the League perspective that is a great prospect.

However, from the League perspective the officiating is poor, including TMOs, and could improve both performances and spectacle.

question is how does one improve the standard of refs? theyre supplied by the unions but work in the league (amongst other competitions) so who would pay for them to eg all be able to go full time?

Question why are the reffing standards so poor?

The general standard of refereeing in pro rugby is poor. It must be partially because the laws are so complicated; modern technology exposes refs more too.
What is frustrating in the Pro12 is that you have refs with clear conflicts of interest reffing matches. Everybody knows that Clancy and Fitzgibbon are biased against Leinster. When you see they are in charge of our games, you know we will not get the fair rub of decisions. That penalty try was a shameful decision and you would really hope the Pro12 will question him about it.
You can also understand why the Welsh moan when they get Irish refs vs Irish teams (even if the Welsh moan at anything, and some Irish refs are biased against Irish teams).
It seems quite an easy one to solve: if you are paying for refs to travel anyway, why not get English ones (if there are not enough from the Celtic countries to provide refereeing with no potential conflict of interest)?

As for the run-in, I do think whatever ref we get will have a bearing on how our season ends. Assuming we get a home semi, I think we should really beat Connacht (our pack should see us through even if our backs are understandably disjointed) but I would wait and see who the ref is.
If we happen to be facing Glasgow, I wouldn't fancy us either way.

[riocard911]

Me either....

[simonokeeffe]

I think a huge part is non neutral (union of origin) officials let alone refs

but say rough figure of €600 per official to go to each match by 4 officials by 132 matches = almost €320k

so would teams rather that expense come out of the prize money?

[artaneboy]

It may not suit the Irish clubs in the circumstances but every game in the league next week holds a very real interest for at least one Club, e.g. even an unlikely BPW against Cardiff, could squeeze Edinburgh past Munster. From the League perspective that is a great prospect.

However, from the League perspective the officiating is poor, including TMOs, and could improve both performances and spectacle.

question is how does one improve the standard of refs? theyre supplied by the unions but work in the league (amongst other competitions) so who would pay for them to eg all be able to go full time?

Go FULL time! Jeez, I want some of them to go NO TIME...

I don't believe the charges of bias, made against Clancy and others. It's not partiality- it's generally incompetence or/ and pedantry. Clancy mistakes the latter for authority. He has no feel for the flow of the game and falls back on his particular rigid understanding of the laws. That inevitably means any match he refs is stop-start in structure and generally a pain to watch. He adds to that recipe those mercurial flourishes such as the double-whammy of the YC and penalty try (it was never the latter) which can totally unbalance a match.

Having said that, we lost that game all on our own. George just decided on the margin.

[simonokeeffe]

heres a scary thought, if theyre deemed to be the best then whats below them?

they could be helped though by a proper citing regime

[Armchair]

Standards of refereeing as said are very poor and while it is admirable that people are still volunteering to become ref's which is no easy job, it is very noticeable that the young referees coming in whilst great to see means in general that due to their young age they are not very experienced in playing rugby at a decent level and are learning their trade from books and videos in the classroom. The amount of referees that understand how the scrum works is schocking, how many times have the union or branches got Greg Feek in to show them how a proper scrum and how an illegal scrum works and what it looks like with 2 packs of forwards, the hands on practical experience in a training situation given by competent people seems to be lacking. The way referees are put on a pedestal and the way some of them act and behave is totally out of order. To criticise a ref is deemed to be out of order but they are not scrutinised often enough or called in for extra training when they clearly make blatant errors, my gripe is more with senior club rugby at 1a and we have had some of the pro lads including Clancy and a few more reffing us this year and their standard was schockingly poor. Even in a match we won with one of them they were really poor. The video review after the matches showed how poor they were. If we send that footage in we are seen as whingers and difficult and refs don't take kindly to being criticised and take it personally so no advantage in pi**ing them off. Until their network accepts and reacts to constructive criticism and put in the necessary follow up training then we shouldn't expect any standards to improve.

[Oldschool]

Standards of refereeing as said are very poor and while it is admirable that people are still volunteering to become ref's which is no easy job, it is very noticeable that the young referees coming in whilst great to see means in general that due to their young age they are not very experienced in playing rugby at a decent level and are learning their trade from books and videos in the classroom. The amount of referees that understand how the scrum works is schocking, how many times have the union or branches got Greg Feek in to show them how a proper scrum and how an illegal scrum works and what it looks like with 2 packs of forwards, the hands on practical experience in a training situation given by competent people seems to be lacking. The way referees are put on a pedestal and the way some of them act and behave is totally out of order. To criticise a ref is deemed to be out of order but they are not scrutinised often enough or called in for extra training when they clearly make blatant errors, my gripe is more with senior club rugby at 1a and we have had some of the pro lads including Clancy and a few more reffing us this year and their standard was schockingly poor. Even in a match we won with one of them they were really poor. The video review after the matches showed how poor they were. If we send that footage in we are seen as whingers and difficult and refs don't take kindly to being criticised and take it personally so no advantage in pi**ing them off. Until their network accepts and reacts to constructive criticism and put in the necessary follow up training then we shouldn't expect any standards to improve.

Standards of refereeing as said are very poor and while it is admirable that people are still volunteering to become ref's which is no easy job, it is very noticeable that the young referees coming in whilst great to see means in general that due to their young age they are not very experienced in playing rugby at a decent level and are learning their trade from books and videos in the classroom. The amount of referees that understand how the scrum works is schocking, how many times have the union or branches got Greg Feek in to show them how a proper scrum and how an illegal scrum works and what it looks like with 2 packs of forwards, the hands on practical experience in a training situation given by competent people seems to be lacking. The way referees are put on a pedestal and the way some of them act and behave is totally out of order. To criticise a ref is deemed to be out of order but they are not scrutinised often enough or called in for extra training when they clearly make blatant errors, my gripe is more with senior club rugby at 1a and we have had some of the pro lads including Clancy and a few more reffing us this year and their standard was schockingly poor. Even in a match we won with one of them they were really poor. The video review after the matches showed how poor they were. If we send that footage in we are seen as whingers and difficult and refs don't take kindly to being criticised and take it personally so no advantage in pi**ing them off. Until their network accepts and reacts to constructive criticism and put in the necessary follow up training then we shouldn't expect any standards to improve.

Good post
Are players contributing to the difficulties by their extra curricular activities.
eg Too much back chat..Histrionics when injyred.
Downright cheating at scrum time.
Back chat trying to get players carded.
That's just for instance.

[simonokeeffe]

Been said often but re implementing moving penalties/free kicks back ten is something IRB need to do

[Dave Cahill]

I always believe that the standard of refs a country produces is a reflection of the game in that country - its a bug bear of mine, but it irks me when supporters complain about refs or their decisions without knowing the laws themselves. This weekend was a perfect example. Now whether one thinks it should have been a penalty try or not is neither here nor there, but the amount of people who said it couldn't or shouldn't have been a penalty try because the ref couldn't have been certain a try would have been scored, or couldn't say that try would definitely have been scored and went on to criticise the ref when they didn't know the law was disheartening.

[kermischocolate]

Isn't one of the central problems World Rugby's directive that referees should "manage" the game and gives too much leeway in interpreting the laws rather than simply applying them.
It's the interpretation that creates inconsistency which is what drives all of us mad.

Simple example - put in at the scrum.
Almost never straight, almost never pinged for it. Results in both front rows working out who can cheat best everytime because they know they don't need to drive straight, actually hook the ball etc.
Back rows cheat with positioning, again on the assumption that the ball is basically coming straight to their feet.
Straight put in with an actual competition for the ball would result in better scrummaging imo as both teams would have something to gain from it.

Simply applying the laws of the game (which at their core aren't as complicated as they have been made to be) would result in a much better spectacle. Which ironically is what they're charging the referees with doing in the first place!

[alanair]

In his defence, I would point out that Clancy is a Tax Official in his day job....so really his interpretation of the laws , is understandable

[Armchair]

What's disheartening is that when teams including my own know a ref is poor on officiating a certain element of the game then we purposely play to that, so if it is a ref who doesn't care about the offside line, we creep further offside on opposition ball, some refs have no clue re scrum so we have soft shoulder on their put in and it looks like opposition are deliberately wheeling, truck and trailer is not even known by most refs any more. It is like a brilliant architect who gets all honours in college but none of his buildings work on the job site, they look good on paper but can't work. We need more coaches involved in refereeing and get them hands on experience, let them experience being a prop or hooker in a controlled environment. Training is important but the quality and competence of the training and trainer is most important

[Armchair]

In his defence, I would point out that Clancy is a Tax Official in his day job....so really his interpretation of the laws , is understandable

A possible explanation of his superior attitude as he thinks everyone is cheating except him

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I actually like refs having some leeway in how they interpret things, but offside is one that I don't understand. It's black and white, players are either onside or they're not. The TMO should be far more involved with it too, it's easy for them to spot in the stands so should be getting on to the ref about teams constantly being offside so the refs can then watch out for it.

[English Bob]

This is a great debate and I agree that the standard of refereeing is poor and not improving. Did anyone see the Rugby Show on BT Sport showing how the refs work in England? They all meet for two days a week at Twickenham to peer review tapes, openly question and/or support decisions amongst themselves, train regularly with clubs and submit their match reports back to the clubs and invite a response/discussion. The RFU (and I think other unions in the SH) are actively encouraging former pro players to joining the reffing ranks. Armchair's experience of how dialogue attempted reflects on the clubs is really disappointing. Another area we are lagging behind in, it would appear.

[curates_egg]

I always believe that the standard of refs a country produces is a reflection of the game in that country - its a bug bear of mine, but it irks me when supporters complain about refs or their decisions without knowing the laws themselves. This weekend was a perfect example. Now whether one thinks it should have been a penalty try or not is neither here nor there, but the amount of people who said it couldn't or shouldn't have been a penalty try because the ref couldn't have been certain a try would have been scored, or couldn't say that try would definitely have been scored and went on to criticise the ref when they didn't know the law was disheartening.

Potayto, potahto.
It was neither probable, definite, certain...nothing. Pretty much every Ulster fan I know agrees. Semantics don't change the fact it was a cr@p decision from a ref with a history of making cr@p decisions against us.
You are really expecting a bit much of fans to memorise the exact wording of all the rules (I know they're called laws but only a pedant would insist on using that high-fallutin term) off by heart. If that disheartens you, you must have a very sensitive heart Dave.

[artaneboy]

Standards of refereeing as said are very poor and while it is admirable that people are still volunteering to become ref's which is no easy job, it is very noticeable that the young referees coming in whilst great to see means in general that due to their young age they are not very experienced in playing rugby at a decent level and are learning their trade from books and videos in the classroom. The amount of referees that understand how the scrum works is schocking, how many times have the union or branches got Greg Feek in to show them how a proper scrum and how an illegal scrum works and what it looks like with 2 packs of forwards, the hands on practical experience in a training situation given by competent people seems to be lacking. The way referees are put on a pedestal and the way some of them act and behave is totally out of order. To criticise a ref is deemed to be out of order but they are not scrutinised often enough or called in for extra training when they clearly make blatant errors, my gripe is more with senior club rugby at 1a and we have had some of the pro lads including Clancy and a few more reffing us this year and their standard was schockingly poor. Even in a match we won with one of them they were really poor. The video review after the matches showed how poor they were. If we send that footage in we are seen as whingers and difficult and refs don't take kindly to being criticised and take it personally so no advantage in pi**ing them off. Until their network accepts and reacts to constructive criticism and put in the necessary follow up training then we shouldn't expect any standards to improve.

I didn't read Alain Rolland's autobiography, but heard him being interviewed about a section where we admitted to giving a team (Leicester) a hard time in a European competition based on their in his phrase 'giving a young referee a hard time the previous week.' I was shocked by the admission- but he almost boasted of his action.

[artaneboy]

I actually like refs having some leeway in how they interpret things, but offside is one that I don't understand. It's black and white, players are either onside or they're not. The TMO should be far more involved with it too, it's easy for them to spot in the stands so should be getting on to the ref about teams constantly being offside so the refs can then watch out for it.

We don't need the TMO for offside- use the Assistant Referees (AKA as 'linesmen' in old money. Take a page out of the much derided soccer handbook- with the added advantage that there's no worry on judging 'when the ball is played' and all that mullarkey.

Either the defender is behind the rear foot or not- easy, you'd think. They are ideally positioned to make those calls and it baffles me why they don't- or do not have it demanded of them!

[Dave Cahill]

Potayto, potahto.
It was neither probable, definite, certain...nothing. Pretty much every Ulster fan I know agrees. Semantics don't change the fact it was a cr@p decision from a ref with a history of making cr@p decisions against us.
You are really expecting a bit much of fans to memorise the exact wording of all the rules (I know they're called laws but only a pedant would insist on using that high-fallutin term) off by heart. If that disheartens you, you must have a very sensitive heart Dave.

They don't have to memorise them, but if they want to shite on about it, then they should at least know what they're shiteing on about. Then they mightn't be so aghast when a ref makes a decision that they don't agree with. Its fine to have an opinion on whether the decision was correct or incorrect, its not fine to base that opinion on an antonymonous understanding of the Law.

Rugby has laws. They're called The Laws of the Game. The website is laws.worldrugby.org, we had the Experimental Law Variations. I'd suggest that the only reason someone would call them anything else is ignorance.