What A Great Referee

I RECALL – back when yellow and red cards were introduced into Rugby Union, the late Alan Hosie fearing some referees would use yellow cards in circumstances where a red was the better punishment. I fear, as he so often was, Mr Hosie was correct.

I think too, at elite club and international level, where the “Bunker” or to give it its full title: “The Fair Play Review System” comes into play, referees have become over-willing to forget that old chestnut: “The Referee is the sole judge of fact” and pass the parcel of making a crucial decision to the somewhat anonymous official sitting in a television outside broadcast truck.

Thus, too often of late, challenges, particularly illegal tackles, which probably deserved a full red card were graded down to a 20-minute red.

So kudos must go, for not opting out of the big decision and trusting her own judgement, to wee Hollie Davidson, who, just 15 minutes into the Toulouse v Exeter Investec Champions Cup match on Sunday, red carded Toulouse prop Rodrigue Neti just 15 minutes into the game. Generally, such an early loss of a player would cripple the team suffering the red card, it says much about the quality and depth of the Toulouse squad that they went on to win the game.

I dare say, supporters being biased beings, had the French side lost, the post-match reaction might have been different, but, on social media, there are numerous posts, in French, from French Rugby fans, praising Hollie's control of the match – they are now realising something some of us in Scotland have known for several years – this wee lassie is a genuine star.

 

Hollie, naturally, grabbed the headlines, but over this European weekend, she was not the only Scottish referee on duty. I can remember, not that long ago, when Scottish match officials were regarded in the game as something akin to rocking horse shit, seen on the international stage with the frequency of Halley's Comet.

Well, no more, in Toulouse, Hollie led a virtually all-Scottish officiating team; she had Rob McDowell and Finlay Brown on the flags, with David Sutherland on TMO duty. Ireland's Peter Ferguson was Citing Commissioner for the game.

The match was Sutherland's second of the weekend, he had also been TMO for the La Rochelle v tenbetLions game, in which McDowell had had one flag, Johnny MacKenzie the other, with Sam Grove-White the man in the middle and England's Chris Catling on Citing Commissioner duties.

Elsewhere, Mike Adamson was in the Bunker for the Australia v New Zealand Bledislow Cup meeting; Beth Dickens was the citing commissioner for the DHL Stormers v Bristol Bears Investec Cup match; Charles Sansom was Citing Commissioner for the meeting of Dragons and Perpignan in the EPCR Challenge Cup, in which competition, Alex Logan was Citing Commissioner for the Harlequins v Vannes game.

Ten Scottish officials in action in big non-Domestic games, from Sydney to London – where not that long ago, unless your surname was Changleng you never got the call (or so it was rumoured). Maybe we should be praising the SRU's Match Officials Department a bit more than we usually do.

FAMILY MATTERS have occupied my time this week, but, I must admit, I was hoping to include the news of the Scotland squad for the upcoming Nations Cup matches in this post. However, with that announcement delayed, I thought I had better get something posted.

It has been a rather interesting week, one thing is clear – last weekend's opening European games were not good for the teams from the over-inflated Prem. Being a tight bar steward, I refuse to pay for online newspaper comment, which leaves me with only the free Guardian pages to peruse.

Even the jammiest English win in Europe will usually have that paper's Chief Rugby Writer – Robert Kitson waxing lyrical about the superiority of the Prem and the English teams. This week – zilch, indeed, he does a convincing impression of Basil Fawlty faced with a coach-load of German tourists: he doesn't mention the war.

FINALLY – with 18 Ayr and 4 Marr players involved in the upcoming Inter-District games, you might have thought the SRU might have given a Glasgow home game to Millbrae – if only to pull in a half-decent attendance of locals. However, that sort of thinking requires a working brain cell and I don't think the current Junta in EH12 has discovered where Dom McKay left that brain cell when he departed.

Good to see Bobby Beattie getting the Glasgow captaincy – proof that, for all wee Bobby's undoubted talent, it still helps to be from one of Scottish Rugby's noble families.