KEY POINTS:
Give the man credit where it's due: Tana Umaga might be in a long line of those who see a slip in the standards of Southern Hemisphere refereeing, and the lack of accountability for said referees, but he's the only one to articulate those frustrations.
Frustrated Blues coach David Nucifora vented his spleen to the referees in the tunnel at halftime in their match against the Sharks. Crusaders supercool coach Robbie Deans had gone similarly apoplectic in the referees' room after the Crusaders-Stormers match in week eight.
When the Chiefs rolled the Sharks in Hamilton last month, coach Dick Muir could only shake his head in resignation when analysing the reasons why his side's dominance in the scrum against the Chiefs did not manifest itself into anything more worthwhile: "The officiating is not up to scratch," he said.
But Umaga laid it on the line.
"I tell my son to become a ref because it's the safest job in the world," he said.
But his most telling comment was: "I have talked to Colin [Cooper] and told him he has to be harder on refs and not butter them up. They get paid just like us but the problem is they don't get dropped and they suffer no accountability for bad games."
There's that word - accountability. The Herald on Sunday has talked to people in a number of franchises and that word keeps cropping up.
Few are willing to go on record like Umaga, fearing reprisals from HQ, but there is a groundswell of discontent around the processes that supposedly monitor referees.
One source said that for a professional sport, the Super 14 had the most amateurish procedures surrounding referees, their appointments, and their review structures.
There is nothing new in the fraught relationship between coach and referee in elite rugby. There is no team sport that relies so much on the interpretive skills of the referee as well as the observational.
But the new scrum laws have thrown the relationship into a harsher light and this year the gap between refs and coaches appears to be wider than ever.
According to at least two rugby sources spoken to by the Herald on Sunday, the seeds of this can be traced to a breakdown in the process of reporting between coaches and referees. For a supposedly professional sport, the means of communication between these two vital pieces on the rugby jigsaw could be described as ad hoc at best.
At the start of this Super 14 season, coaches filed reports on the referee after the game to Sanzar co-ordinator Carel du Plessis. He would collate the reports and, if there were any major sticking points, he would refer the matter to the referees' bosses of the three Sanzar partners - in New Zealand's case, former international referee Keith Lawrence.
Du Plessis resigned this year at which point Sanzar employee Peter Rowles issued an email that said if coaches felt they were better off communicating directly with the referees themselves, they should do that rather than file reports.
Even those who profess themselves relaxed with the current system say this should be rectified.
"In the absence of Carel du Plessis, I guess there's an opportunity at the review in July to reinstate some sort of intermediary between the coaches and the referees," Highlanders manager Greg O'Brien said.
"There could be situations where direct contact between referees and coaches is inappropriate."
Such interaction remains a grey area in rugby. Outbursts like those of Nucifora and Deans are rarely reported and the Sanzar Code of Conduct means criticism of officials by coaches and players at post-match press conferences have to be guarded.
One source said there was a "disconnect" between those assessing the referees and the coaches and players. He said coaches could criticise certain aspects of a referee's performance but they had no idea what action, if any, was taken against the referee, whether the assessor agreed with the coaches' comments or if they were dismissed.
"For a supposedly professional sport it is an ad hoc approach," the source said.
On the other side of the coin there was surprise among referees when Nucifora, reputedly one of the more 'difficult' coaches to deal with, escaped without sanction after the Blues-Sharks match.
One referee who spoke with Herald on Sunday on condition of anonymity said there was a greater need for accountability on both sides.
He said the referees were split on the idea of fronting to press conferences after games to explain decisions but personally believed it would be a giant step in the right direction.
"Some would be quite happy to, some don't want anything to do with it," the referee said.
Perhaps players and coaches shouldn't be surprised there is little action from above.
On hearing of Umaga's outburst, International Rugby Board referees' boss Paddy O'Brien offered this remarkable lack of intuition.
"He's just come off a loss in his last game. It's very easy for players and coaches to hide a poor performance behind the referee.
"He has been one of the great players in the Super 14 and is entitled to have that view, but there was probably a bit of emotion involved," O'Brien said.
Those at the press conference say O'Brien couldn't be further from the truth if he delivered the quote from another galaxy. Rather than being based in emotion, Umaga's statement was a stone-cold sober reflection on what he considers the biggest plight in the game. If only somebody would stop and listen.
