STORM MALIK, or whatever it was called, messed-up my Saturday afternoon, with the Newcastle Falcons v Gloucester match put back until later on Saturday night. However, I noticed that Free Sports were showing the South African United Rugby Championship match between the Sharks and the Stormers, so I thought, why not? Here are a few observations:
Some Boers still appear to think, “The Laws don't apply to us, we can do as we like on the park.”
Siya Kolisi is a fantastic role model. How many players, getting over the try line but knowing they had been held-up would, as he did at one point, tell the referee: “Don't bother going upstairs to check, I didn't get the ball down.”
We perhaps need to import a few South African scrum coaches. In some games today, there are not many scrums, but, when a pack is properly coached at scrum time – it remains a formidable weapon.
The way the modern composite ball “sweats” in humid conditions, there might be a case for a return to the old leather ball. Some of the handling in the game was awful, in-part due to how the modern ball reacts to humidity.
Rugby's TMO protocols are far superior to Football's VAR protocols. Watching and listening to how the decision to give the Stormers their match-tying Penalty Try in overtime was highly-educational.
But, with reference to that final point, the biggest thing I took from the game is – who would want to be a referee? Bad enough having players questioning every decision, but, when you then have extended trial by Television as well. It's not worth the bother some times.
Mind you, I have long held, when you see the amount of second-guessing of referees' decisions and the amount of controversy around match officials today – it's not the referees who are at fault, but the Laws of the Game.
We really need a major and in-depth overhaul of the Law Book, backed-up by a World Rugby-led clamp down on dissent and what I prefer to call “unprofessional fouls.”
One of the cheapest tricks I see in the modern game is how, given the requirement that the tackler immediately rolls away at the breakdown, how often that tackler is prevented from doing so by an opponent – who immediately gets a penalty as his reward. Referees, in my view, need to be smarter in sorting-out this sort of cheating. Just restart play with a scrum, possession to the non-infringing team, the holding down would soon stop.
STILL ON the subject of television coverage of Rugby, I honestly think at times, Lawrence Dallaglio is trying to compete with Austin Healey to see who can be the stupidest. If so, he's wasting his time, wee Healey is far-sharper, but has decided to appoint himself Rugby Union's Court Jester.
Early on during Friday night's Bath v Harlequins game, the bold Dallaglio informed us that one of the 'Quins' backs was having: “an excellent game.” The first thing the poor guy had done was butcher a certain try, by knocking-on as he dived. Next time he was called into action, he was skinned on the outside by his immediate Bath opponent, and the third time he featured, he knocked-on. But, the player is English, so, in Dallaglio's eyes, he can do no wrong.
Mind you, on Sunday afternoon we had another example of how poorly the talking heads from the other nations rate Scotland, when Brian O'Driscoll, commenting on London Irish beating Exeter Chiefs, reckoned Irish would only be missing James Hassell-Collins during the Six Nations – completely overlooking oor ain Kyle Rowe.
I suppose the answer is, if Scotland does win the tournament, then they'd have to start paying attention to us. Or, would it be another case of England not playing, to finish fifth – again?
THAT WAS an excellent victory for Glasgow Warriors in Galway on Saturday evening. Not many sides will visit the Showground and score that many tries – and Glasgow did it with several first picks kept back with the Scotland squad – we could do with more such victories.
But, I was disappointed that Edinburgh lost to Ospreys. If the Scottish teams are to offer a genuine challenge to the Irish and South African teams in the URC, going to Wales and winning ought to become normal.
However, what really pisses me off is the way our two full-time professional teams are treated by BBC Shortbread. OK, we all know, at Pacific Quay, “SPORT” means football, and more-exactly two Glasgow-based teams. We really should be demanding better of London's principal propaganda mouthpiece.
It's all very well covering home games from Scotstoun, but, when all you are getting from an away game is online score flashes – it simply isn't good enough. I have said this before and I fear I will be saying it again in the future – it's maybe time for the SRU to start playing hardball with the Scottish media.
Start treating Scottish Rugby as a proper, big, grown-up sport, or, we stop co-operating with you. For instance, ITV showed a live Gallagher Premiership game on the STV platform – when the same game was already in its regular slot on BT Sport.
BBC Wales regularly shows URC games, both on BBC Wales and S4C. Ulster's games are regularly, either “live” or “as live” on BBC Northern ireland; Hell, they even show Ulster A games.
But, Scottish Rugby is almost a no-go area for BBC Shortbread, other than the improving Super6 coverage. It's time we stopped being an after thought to the decision-makers at Pacific Quay. Always assuming the high heid yins there are allowed to make big decisions.
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