IN MY last post, I asked if either Scottish pro club could win with John Lacey on the whistle. This week, I have another rhetorical question - can either ever win with Wayne Barnes in the middle?
Stade Toulouse might well still have beaten Glasgow at Scotstoun, without the considerable help they got from the man who has taken over from Jimmy Hill as the rest of the world's least-favourite sporting Englishman.
Watching the game on TV, before heading for the Millbrae press box and Ayr v Stirling County, there was one wee vignette whereby, in one attack, three clear and obvious Toulouse offences were overlooked by Barnes, but, the first Glasgow offence was pinged. However, I am not alone in believing Wayne's World of Refereeing is a parallel universe. I mentioned my disquiet about Barnes to a former Scottish international referee, a man with a reputation for probity and professionalism to which Barnes can only aspire and he merely said: "Don't get me started on Wayne Barnes". 'Nuff said.
I NOTE some of our southern neighbours are up in arms again, about the salary cap currently in effect in the English Premiership.
The poor down-trodden top English sides, such as Saracens, Leicester and Harlequins will, apparently have to get by next season of a £5 million salary bill, plus a further sum which can be spent on two "marquee" signings, above the £5 million.
This isn't enough, apparently, and unless it is increased, English rugby will wither and die on the vine.
What planet are these guys on. Several English clubs would collapse without the financial backing of their sugar daddies. They do not have the infrastructure or the core support to underpin even the trifling and inadequate £5 million, yet, they want to spend more money, which will apparently have to come from Mr Murdoch or BT.
Rugby will survive without these big-money clones of the English football premiership and, the more I see these greedy obese clots crying wolf and asking for more, the more sympathy I have with the many fine rugby men I know who turned their back on this great game when it went professional.
English and to an equal extent French rugby is en route to Hell in a hand-cart, through the greed and financial incompetence of a handful of men running a handful of clubs.
I HAD a "Eureka" moment last week, while watching a European football match.
Out came the vanishing spray at a free-kick, and it hit me. Here is the answer to oner major rugby problem, plus a couple of minor ones.
Just suppose a rugby referee could mark-out the line of scrummage - the centre-line of the front row tunnell. Then, surely, at long-last, he would spot the squint scrum feed, thereby ending one of the plooks on the face of the game.
By the same token, marking the spot from which a penalty should be taken would end the practice of stealing yards, which has become, to my mind, a bit obvious lately. And finally, a quick squirt on the touchline and the five metre and fifteen metre lines would give us a clue as to squint line-outs and the increasingly-prevalent instances of the throwing-in hooker taking a half pace or so to his own side.
Mind you, there is one drawback. Apparently the spray vanished after a minute of so, which, given some referees like to spend five minutes on every scrum, might mean they would need more than one bottle of spray per game.
GLASGOW Warriors put Pat McArthur up as sacrificial victim at a press conference this week, cue the usual guff about fighting his way back into the Scotland squad.
Rumour has it - Ross Ford, Fraser Brown, Scott Lawson, Kevin Bryce and about half a dozen other hookers would need to fall under the proverbial Clapham omnibus before McArthur gets a recall to the Scotland squad.
This, of course, overlooks the obvious fact that he is Scotland's second-best hooker, behind a fit and focussed Ford. In fact, when you consider McArthur's superior work in defence, plus the fact, he throws-in every week to Jonny Gray, who calls Scotland's lines-out, some would play him from the start, ahead of Ford.
But, McArthur has, apparently, offended someone of substance at Murrayfield, either Scott Johnston or Jake Humphries. Such a pity an Austrtalian or Welsh ego is denying Scotland the use of one of its top players.
I fear, like another Ayr RFC produced hooker from the Jurassic Age, Quintin Dunlop, McArthur has been cast into outer darkness - to the detriment of Scottish Rugby.
Some day, we will grow-up.
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