You could sense the growing frustration of the commentators, in particular England World Cup winner and former British and Irish Lion Lawrence Dallaglio during an otherwise excellent Investec Champions Cup semifinal between Bordeaux-Begles and Bath.
Yes, of course Dallaglio, being English, would have wanted Bath to win, but even to neutrals it was frustrating to watch the number of high hits on Bath No 8 Alfie Barberry mount up without the host broadcaster replaying the incidents.
The hits looked pretty blatant in real time, and certainly worse than several other far more innocuous incidents that have brought cards and sometimes even more serious sanctions in other games elsewhere in the world.
But the hits weren’t replayed, and it led to a situation whereby, from the understanding gained from UK media reports, it wasn’t only Dallaglio and Bath supporters who were frustrated and unhappy.
The refereeing team, meaning the on-field referee Nika Amashukeli, the assistant referees and TMO Ben Whitehouse, were apparently frustrated too at not being able to replay the incidents that were correctly highlighted by Bath’s head of rugby Johann van Graan afterwards.
Van Graan understood their plight so correctly distanced them from his criticism: “There were three head shots on Alfie, in the 19th, 23rd, and 42nd minutes. I thought Nika did a fantastic job and Ben the TMO did the best he could with the angles available to him. For such an amazing contest we need to make sure they’ve got the footage they need.”
The French host broadcasters, France Televisions, which is the national state funded broadcaster like the SABC is in South Africa and the BBC is in Britain, fired back at Van Graan “that it was impossible to hide footage” and argued that if it was asked for it would have been supplied.
However, according to Will Kelleher of The Times, “Sunday’s refereeing team were frustrated that they did not have full access to the replay footage they needed to decide whether these tackles, from Adam Coleman, Maxime Lucu and Maxim Lamothe, on Barbeary were illegal and warranted cards.”
Those who understand how the media works won’t need too much imagination to know who Kelleher’s sources would have been. If not the match officials themselves, someone connected to them. And the referees being at the apex of a media storm when feeling their hands are tied is apparently not a new narrative in France.
STORMERS WERE EXPOSED TO THE VAGARIES IN TOULON
Indeed, DHL Stormers fans might cast their minds back a few weeks to the round of 16 Champions Cup tie against Toulon. That wasn’t an issue around head hits, but the final move of the game, where the Stormers were sure they had scored what would have been the winning try.
The attitude to the French television directors in general was summed up a commentator at Toulon’s following game against Glasgow when he suggested that had the French television producers found another angle when the referee was searching for clarity on whether the ball had been grounded or not it would have been the Stormers and not Toulon playing in the Glasgow quarterfinal.
Given how they outmuscled Glasgow in their Vodacom URC game a few weeks later, the Stormers would have had a good chance of becoming the first South African team to make a Champions Cup semifinal had that try, and the Stormers have no doubt it was a try, been awarded.
The referee Christophe Ridley was rightly criticised afterwards, both on this site and by Nick Mallett in his role as a Supersport analyst, but from memory Ridley did take an inordinate amount of time to make his decision and there did seem to be an exhaustive search for an extra angle that was not forthcoming.
THERE COULD BE VARIOUS CONTRIBUTING FACTORS
Would another angle have been forthcoming if the match was being played somewhere else in the world? Quite possibly, but that does not mean we should make the easy jump to assuming that means the French are crooked.
As Kelleher points out, it comes down to lack of uniformity in how technology is applied, with Champions Cup coverage in France operating under “a relatively basic production system, which has a knock-on effect on catching incidents of foul play”.
According to Kelleher, the TMO can ask for a formal review “but, as was shown in the Bordeaux/Bath game, sometimes the best clips are not readily available”.
When it comes to the high hits in Bordeaux, perhaps there is also a cultural difference between France and other countries when it comes to what constitutes a serious act of foul play.
The system used in France is considered old school by people in the industry compared to systems used elsewhere, such as in England for the Gallagher Premiership fixtures, and then there’s another level up for the Six Nations, the Rugby World Cup and other international rugby.
But while all of this makes the kind of disconnect that there is between what we viewed on Sunday and the almost over-zealous use of technology to pinpoint incidents of foul play elsewhere understandable, it also isn’t excusable if rugby is going to move forward and get to the point that everyone involved in the game aspires to.
CONSISTENCY NEEDS TO BE OVERARCHING AIM
That point was summed up by former Springbok prop Rob Kempson in his role as a Supersport co-commentator in the opening Under-20 Rugby Championship game between New Zealand and Australia in Gqeberha.
Australia effectively lost the game because of their indiscipline but there were times it looked like their players were being pinged for actions that the junior All Blacks were allowed to get away with, prompting Kempson to say “All everyone asks for is consistency”.
Although they kept it well concealed, Kempson and his fellow commentator Matt Pearce were no doubt as frustrated watching that under-20 game as Dallaglio was this past Sunday, as were many of us other neutrals watching a game which we had no skin in and yet felt short-changed by seeing the contest determined by inconsistent refereeing.
At least in that instance, meaning Gqeberha, though we could blame the referee and the TMO. Differences in the use of technology wasn’t to blame for the inconsistency and the referee wasn’t an innocent with hands effectively tied behind the back caught at the apex of a media storm like the officials were in Bordeaux.
But there does need to be some effort made to ensure that when it comes to the professional level of the sport it is at least applied in a uniform way. Otherwise the consistency Kempson spoke of will always remain beyond reach and refereeing will remain a more thankless job than it needs to be.