All Blacks' Scott Barrett in action against England. Photo / Photosport
OPINION:
It wasn’t just the score that was tied at Twickenham in the All Blacks’ last game of 2022, so too was the frustration at an enormous penalty count and glacial-paced game felt equally by New Zealanders and English alike.
It wasn’t that referee Mathieu Raynal was inconsistent or wildly inaccurate, he was just supremely pedantic, officiating with no feel for the game both teams wanted to play.
The penalty count could have been cut in half as so many were technical rather than practical — given in recognition of the letter of the law, while ignoring entirely the spirit.
Both teams were pinged a couple of times for going off their feet at a ruck, but if the attacking side is clearly in the process of recycling the ball legally, and there is no contest, does it really matter if some dopey late arrival trips over his size 16s and flops on the wrong side?
And strangely, given Raynal is the only referee in history to have penalised a team for time wasting, there were long black holes of inactivity last Saturday, where minutes were lost to scrum resets, team huddles, elongated injury breaks and goodness knows what.
The All Blacks got themselves in a muddle about how to kill the last two minutes of the game when they were seven points up.
But it was simple how best to do it, deliberately knock the ball-on and hey presto, 60 seconds would have disappeared just like that trying to set the scrum.
The pedantry of Raynal was in stark contrast to the empathy Wayne Barnes brought to the All Blacks clash against Wales two weeks previously, when the Englishman, in his 100th test, recognised the slippery conditions and made allowances for players from both sides when they lost their feet.
Too readily the rugby fraternity looks at this variation in how tests are policed and determines there are good referees and bad referees.
Clearly not all referees have the same ability, but test matches have been turned into a lottery not by individual competence, but by World Rugby’s inability to determine what sort of game it wants to deliver to the paying public.
International rugby could instantly better itself as an entertainment product and build confidence that the core elements will mostly look the same each game, by the governing body agreeing a handful of key principles that referees must enforce.
Top of the list has to be the speed of the game — not the tempo at which teams play, but the management around injury breaks, scrum resets and stoppages in play.
Too often games just drift into nothing with all the extended breaks and administrators either have to introduce time limits by which the game needs to restart or empower referees to penalise teams if they think they are obviously winding the clock down.
There needs, also, to be clearer guidelines about the role of the TMO. Does rugby want to continue with this blurred line hierarchy where it’s not apparent if the referee or TMO is in charge?
Everyone wants the right decisions to be made but TMOs have become so intrusive and persuasive as to make it feel like there is little point in having a referee on the field.
And referees need to be assured that they needn’t worry about picking up every infringement — every time a player is technically in breach of the law.
A good performance will be considered one where the obvious transgressions are penalised and the little things that neither materially advantage nor disadvantage either side are ignored for the sake of allowing the contest to flow.
Ultimately, how successful rugby remains as an entertainment product will be determined by the skill-level of the players, but it needs a foundation laid by officialdom to tidy up all the inconsistencies that confuse everyone and kill interest.
The game would benefit enormously if the average test didn’t take the better part of two hours, yet the ball only being in play for about 34 minutes.
It would be a more compelling watch if the referee could treat the TMO the same way he can players — dismiss them with a reminder he is in charge.
There is significant pressure on World Rugby to get this right or the sport will be damaged as even though it’s mostly old money that pays to watch rugby in the UK, certainly it’s a game for the middle classes, they are feeling the pinch in this cost of living crisis which has seen inflation in the UK jump to 11 per cent.
Even the cheap seats at Twickenham sting the occupant for $160 and many would have left the famous old ground last weekend feeling like they got 10 minutes of value for money.
It is time for rugby to decide what a good contest looks like and help referees deliver it.