Rugby’s referees have become detached from the spirit of the game

One of rugby’s greatest principles is that from the first day a player laces on a boot, respect for referees is culturally ingrained. Yet there is no other major sport on the planet whose referees have become so detached from the spirit of the game.

That phrase “spirit of the game” appears multiple times in rugby’s law book. While the gulf between the game and its referees has been widening for more than a decade, the final seconds of last weekend’s Bledisloe Cup match in Melbourne has brought that ruptured relationship back into public gaze.

After desperate defence, with less than a minute remaining, the Wallabies had just won a penalty. They were about to kick to touch, an action which with all probability would have cemented a historic win when, astonishingly, referee Mathieu Raynal blew his whistle and penalised the Wallaby kicker Bernard Foley for time-wasting. He then awarded New Zealand a scrum, from which the Kiwis scored and won. Ironically, time-wasting is an action the law book describes as “against the spirit of the game”.

Raynal’s actions demonstrated the vast chasm between what our officials understand as the “spirit of the game” and the rest of us. Last Saturday was a dramatic example of the unwanted and seemingly unstoppable phenomena of rugby’s on-field officials dominating and determining match outcomes.

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I have heard of no former players or coaches who have supported Raynal’s decision. Like me, all have said they have never witnessed a decision like it in their lives. Everyone I have spoken to, from across the globe, has universally expressed a grave concern regarding the now far-too-powerful influence referees are having on match outcomes.

Yet astoundingly, or perhaps predictably, the refereeing community has supported Raynal’s decision. My experience is that police who investigate complaints against fellow police rarely conclude that the police are the problem.

Over the past week the refereeing world has had a mirror held up before it, and has jumped into denial.

In supporting Raynal’s decision, his fellow referees are defending the indefensible. Instead of telling the world that the decision was an error of judgment and that it was against the spirit of rugby, they are arguing on a highly doubtful interpretation on a point of law. Which is the perfect example of all that is wrong with the relationship between the game and its referees. It also tells us how profoundly out of step with the rest of the game our officials are.

That is not a description that rugby’s officials will enjoy but it is how the overwhelming majority of the rugby community are currently viewing their role in the game.

This is not about criticising referees for making errors. They are human and errors will always occur. We all accept that as part of the game. It is the emergence of the phenomena of referees regularly determining the outcome of matches and rugby’s leadership’s refusal to address the problem that is causing such great concern.

What has stifled so much of the much-needed reform in rugby officiating is that referee administrators are still desperately clinging on to the ancient tenet that the lone match-day referee shall be the sole judge of fact and law.

In the other contact codes such as American Football and Rugby League, that belief is dead. Extra officials, such as TMOs and assistant referees, can make decisions on tries, reset time to be played on match clocks and act when players are offside without that decision being taken by the single lead match official.

Rugby is a far more complex game than NFL or League, yet our referees resist reforms that would speed up the game, keep the ball in play for longer periods and through extra policing reduce the number of penalties.

If any of those tools were available to Raynal last week he could have simply blown his whistle and asked for the match clock to be reset eight seconds back, (yes, that is all it was) and justice would have been served.

This crisis, because in reality that is what it is, has been caused by two major systemic malfunctions.

Firstly, the process of how our referees are evaluated, ranked and appointed to matches is deeply flawed. Referees are evaluated not on what type of match they produce, or whether the games were entertaining. They are reviewed, rewarded or penalised in their personal ratings on what they fail to act on. If they do not blow their whistle for every conceivable technical penalty they themselves are penalised. By definition, the referees are incentivised to whistle anything and everything.

This is why we have over 25 penalties in almost every match.

This negative evaluation system has led to an explosion in referees penalising highly technical infringements. No greater example than in Adelaide when the Springboks were in hot attack against the Wallabies. After a low, clean tackle the Wallabies did not contest the ruck. There was not a single gold jersey near the Springboks’ ball carrier on the ground, the ball was free for the Boks to use, yet the referee penalised the Springboks for an alleged illegal entry into the ruck.

With no feeling for the game or responsibility for entertainment and maybe thinking of his own post-match review, the referee awarded a penalty.

Recently I attended a high level under-age match where the young referee was a carbon copy of his seniors. Every second-half scrum resulted in a penalty. Teams in attack were penalised for technical infringements. He constantly stopped play to consult his assistant referees. The second half was 52 minutes long. The kids’ playing time was minimal and their enjoyment factor was close to zero. The young referee was simply emulating his role models and was the focal point of the afternoon.

If those in charge of evaluating and appointing our referees tell them to be pedantic, then that is exactly what they will do and that is exactly what we are getting.

The second problem for our referees sits in that great politically gridlocked space in rugby, the legislature. With so much reform required to rugby’s bulging law book and so little being done, the referees have an encyclopedia of laws to enforce.

In the recent Wallabies v Springboks test in Adelaide, across 80 minutes, the ball was in play for a shockingly short 28 minutes. So many leading thinkers on the game have been advocating for many years on ways to extend the amount of time the ball is in play by modifying laws that will reduce the sheer volume of penalties. Despite this, and other proposals such as increasing the value of tries and reducing the value of all kicks at goal to two points, the Easter Island statues in World Rugby’s legislature have remained immovable. Without their co-operation, efforts to lift the entertainment and player enjoyment factors of the game by having the ball in play for far longer periods is impossible.

This attitude from within our officiating community has sadly seen them become more isolated and more distant from the “family” of the game. At the same time, the power balance between those who play and those who officiate has shifted drastically, creating the unthinkable situation where our referees are the most-seen figures on our TV screens in matches, while our great players are reduced to being part-time participants.

All of that is wounding rugby.

Our refereeing community would do well to remember that the great respect rugby rightly offers to our officials has its foundation in the concept that the game is bigger than us all. A concept that would appear to be under threat from those who are charged with adjudicating and legislating rugby’s laws.