KEY POINTS:
Video referees have been the best improvement in rugby since the game went pro.
Sadly there has been a lull in the use of technology since the game's rulers decided it might be handy to see if tries were scored correctly. It was galling that IRB referees boss
Paddy O'Brien was fobbed off when he suggested the scope of video officials' power should be broadened in this World Cup year.
Too time-consuming, too much like gridiron, the blazer brigade countered. That comparison came into real focus after the confusion about laws and decisions in the first round of the Super 14, while the Super Bowl final cantered along with clarity.
My dread remains that, in a massive game of rugby like a Six Nations championship, the Super 14 or World Cup final, the referee or touchjudges, in the unforgiving global glare of television replays, will be judged to have made a match-deciding gaffe. Games where millions have been spent on stadiums, entertainment and conditioning athletes will hang on a referee's decision.
It would be great to know, as O'Brien proposed, if there was an offence in the build-up to a try, like a player putting his foot in touch or obstruction by a defender. At the moment, the TMO is asked to rule only if the ball has been legitimately grounded over the line. It takes some time, but it is an interactive part of the match. Mostly, officials get the decision right and retain their credibility.
There was a new dimension to the tennis at the Australian Open because of the camera challenges, and cricket has benefited from checking run-out and stumping decisions with a third umpire. But those sports leave themselves open to ridicule when television replays show an incorrect linecall or faulty leg-before rulings.
Rugby suffers equally. It is part of the landscape that TV audiences clamour for replays and, if they reveal referees' mistakes, they do the match officials no favour.
The game has sped up so much in the past 25 years that it has become too difficult for one referee to control matches. There is so much ball movement that a referee cannot guarantee he will be at the tackled ball area, for example, to see who is doing what to whom. That law obviously needs some serious attention but it would be a massive help to have referees in each quarter of the field.
In one of a number of examples last weekend, it was baffling to watch Brumbies flanker George Smith get sin-binned for what looked to be a legal pilfering of the ball. There was similar confusion when Troy Flavell was sent to the bin for trampling.
The Blues hung on to win but Flavell's exit could have changed the result. In such cases, it would be judicious to check the footage with a video referee. Like run-outs in cricket, the suspense would add to the event, rather than interfere with the flow.
Quizzed a while back about broadening the use of the video referee, O'Brien said it would probably apply about three or four times a match. That sort of intrusion is surely justified in this multimillion-dollar industry.