I HAVE long been a believer in the adage, which I first heard delivered by a very-famous Scottish referee – Scotland will never get a square deal around decisions, until we have two or three referees on the International Panel. The belief for this is that, referees from other countries can harshly penalise Scotland, safe in the knowledge, there isn't a Scottish referee around who could make the same iffy call against their country.
Now, that notion might be total nonsense, but, when you see Scott Cummings getting a red card and a one game suspension for something, then you see Argentina's Julián Montoya getting away with what seemed, from the TV pictures, to be a worse infraction than the Cummings one, with merely a yellow card, you wonder.
I am not criticising the referees in Paris on Friday night; I felt they did a sterling job, but, as is so-often the case, the officiating team was a multi-national one: English referee Luke Pearce, Italian Andrea Piardi and South African Morne Ferreira as Assistant Referees, Englishman Ian Tempest as TMO with Ireland's Ollie Hodges as the FPRO in the bunker.
In football, they tend to go with single nation officiating teams, I feel it would make things easier for the officials if this single nation approach was introduced in Rugby Union. That said the biggest problem Rugby Union has around refereeing today is, the Laws are now so opaque things will only improve with a total overhaul of them. When, as happens today, match officials are told to: “Penalise the offence which has the most material affect on the game”, because he has so-many potential infringements to choose from at every breakdown – then we've got a game in-crisis.
Friday night's international was “A game of two halves”, with France's impressive half-time lead being reined-in as the Pumas again showed themselves to be “a second-half team”. It was a thoroughly-entertaining match, which I enjoyed immensely.
Several Argentinian commenters on social media were convinced Pearce was re-playing “The Malvinas War” as he penalised and carded the men in the blue and white hoops. But lads, he wasn't the guy giving away cheap and obvious penalties.
THERE WAS even-more “The Referee was shite and a Homer” on social media after Ireland's fairly straight-forward big win over Fiji. In this case, the referee getting pelters was oor ain more-than-capable Hollie Davidson. To their shame (not that they probably do shame) many of Hollie's critics were primarily criticising her because: “A woman should not be refereeing a Men's match”.
Help - she's a woman, we cannot have this
Clearly our game still has something of a mysogony problem, because, Hollie is an excellent referee, who controlled a difficult game well. I felt one or two of the Fijians were none too happy having to do what a woman told them, which she had to do often, since their discipline was again more than a bit iffy.
Most of the social media criticism, I feel, comes down to the fact – she's a woman. Not that long ago, she brandished a red card in the Women's World Cup final and nobody batted an eyelid. She gives yellow cards in a Men's game and gets pelters. Men, the intellectually weaker sex.
The Fijian yellow cards and soft penalties undid them totally, helping the Irish to win. You had to feel for Mick Byrne, Fiji's Coach, who was frequently seen in television reaction shots from the coaching box, shaking his head in disbelief at one or two of the duff decisions made by his men.
I PASSED on Wales v South Africa – since the final result was always going to be a case of how big would the Saffa's win be. Instead, I took-in the Scotland A v Chile game – a match I will cover in my next post.
South Africa, needless to say, won easily. There is no sign of an early end to the Welsh woes.
MY BELIEF IN Scottish Independence as a necessity frequently gets me into bother with the large “We're British first, Scottish second” faction of “90 minute patriots” within the Scottish Rugby Union family. Well, here's something for these “North Britons” to reflect on.
The Guardian brands itself thus: “The Guardian is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian, and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London.”
Aye Right! Both teams for Saturday's international at Scottish Gas Murrayfield were announced on Friday afternoon. The paper did a lengthy piece on the Australia team, but totally failed to even mention the Scotland one. So much for being “British” - or is it the old story of Britain meaning England.
Something for the “House Jocks” in the body of the Kirk to consider.
FINALLY – the arrival of Storm Bert this weekend had me all nostalgic. It was quite like old times, since I used to reckon we would get the first real snows of winter about now, just in time for me and like-minded idiots to go off and marshal in Kirroughtree and Glen Trool Forests for the RAC Rally of Great Britain. We were always guaranteed an interesting drive through the snow over the Nick of the Balloch en route.
This weekend, it was my two youngest daughters and their four Setters, going off at 3am on Saturday, heading for Newark and the Setter and Pointer Show. The A66 was already closed, so they had to go via the M62, but, thanks to sterling work of the gritter and snow plough teams, they got there in time.
Then I read about these soft rugby players calling-off club games. Pussies, the lot of them.
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