Bring back technology-free refereeing in rugby

“We wuz robbed!” A complaint as old as sport itself. Behind it lies two conceits. First, that the onlooker or player is a dispassionate model of clear-sighted judgement. And, its counter, the high-minded Corinthian principle that the referee is the sole arbiter of fact. An idea that plainly pre-dates slo-mo, the ability to draw arrows on a TV screen and social media. 

Yes, a ropey old way to hold sport together and more frayed still in an age where nobody can hold an opinion moderately and technocratic officials hide ever further behind threadbare credentialism. But it’s what we have. And, without willing suspension of disbelief on the part of all involved, sport would simply fall apart. 

“There’s no game without the ref, boys!” It’s a point made by soothing captains, desperate whistlers and uncertain umpires every week. 

Wherefore this meditation on officiating? Well, you guessed it, we wuz robbed! In fact, there were several robberies over the weekend and all of them in plain sight. I’d call the police but their ability to referee is also the subject of what might be politely termed “debate”.

Always best to return to the scene of the crime and seal off the area. In which case, throw the incident tent up in Lyon where England’s rugby team had their pocket picked by a late, late call from the television match official (TMO) claiming heroic number eight Ben Earl had put in a no-arms tackle on French lock Romain Taofifenua, a moving massif central who weighs in at over 21 of your British stone and stands a casual 6’ 8”.

Unsurprisingly, he made Big Ben look small and Earl himself tried to work on the principle that everyone is the same size round the ankles. He went low and, in doing so, clearly offered his right arm. A point made in increasingly high-pitched mitigation plea by pitchside pundit Ugo Monye. Taofifenua, as you would, simply leant his avalanche bulk on Earl who never really stood a chance thereafter. His attempt to grab on was broken.

Fair do’s. It’s about momentum and as anyone who can match my ‘O’ level physics will tell you, momentum = mass x velocity. Romain had both on his side.

Not so to TMO Ben Whitehouse, whose assumed knowledge of the laws of the game – he’s been on a course, y’know – trumped the universal laws of physics and felt he must intervene in the dying moments of a close and titanic struggle to whisper “no arms tackle” in the ear of referee Angus Gardener who, in any case, had been right by the incident and was playing on. That was it, Gardener’s self-belief collapsed and he immediately gave France a penalty advantage they went on to butcher.

Seventy-nine minutes on the clock and up steps Tomas Ramos to belt over the kick from the half way line. England lose. Just. 

A shame, not just for England, but for the spectacle. It had been a Waterloo of a match. Each side had, at points, nearly been swept away by the ferocity of the onslaught. England in the first ten to fifteen minutes where French size and continuity had the boys in white “Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to be washed off at the next tide.” France, either side of the half when England unleashed a three-try counter attack to put them ahead. The lead was changing hands more often than La Haye Sainte in 1815.

Then, like an officiating Blücher, Whitehouse arrived late in the field and felt he must do something. That thing being to make an intervention that even French former international Benjamin Kayser described as “harsh”.

“When you have such a powerful ball carrier… for me the elbow is on the floor, so for me it is shoulder-first, but I agree with you [Monye] that it’s a half-decision.” In other words not one you throw into the mix in minute 79 of “the closest run thing you ever saw”.

Former referee Rob Debney wrote in The Times:

“Unfortunately, World Rugby has now found itself in a tricky position where TMOs are getting involved in things they really should not be. They have got to trust the referee’s judgment more often.

“The TMO coming in like this adds an extra layer of inconsistency into refereeing, and massive calls are being made that are changing the result late in the game. It’s beyond a joke, unnecessary and not good enough.”

This, you see, is the danger of giving people jobs. They will insist on doing them. Especially when given the false security of technology. Witchsmellers will find witches. Or what’s the point of having them? Meaning warty girls and outweighed number 8s are in big trouble. 

All of which must be moderated by pointing out that flaky decision-making is among sport’s oldest phenomena. Philosophers and football managers mumble it away with “swings and roundabouts” and “what goes around comes around”. Or, at least, they used to. 

Now, of course, they rail against the round ball’s VAR system, introduced, and this’ll get you, to emulate rugby’s use of technology to bring an element of certainty to the marginal. More than “did the ball cross the line?”, it governs all sorts of things from penalty decisions to whether a lock of hair or half a hand constitutes offside.

Proving that mission creep backed by tech can be nugatory were matters at West ‘am, where the ‘ammers were un’appy at the longest decision-making process in VAR ‘istory.

Denied a 95th-minute winner against Aston Villa by a marginal handball call that took over five minutes to adjudicate. West Ham’s Scottish manager David Moyes went marching onto the pitch like PG Wodehouse’s “ray of sunshine”.

The obvious point being that, if it took more than five minutes to establish a handball missed by the human eye then its effect, if such it was, was marginal to inconsequential. The letter of the law and the spirit of the game clash in a way that makes the former more “honoured in the breach than in the observance.”

Nor does it do much for flow. Watchers of gridiron will know that a sixty-minute sport can take some years to complete, the factors behind which include the oddly quaint habit of the legion of officials hurling flags onto the field after each play. Staccato and the more flowing appeal of old world sports are bad bedfellows. It already takes enough time to complete a scrum as players and officials compete in an escalating war of technical offence. 

Only in test cricket has tech really worked. Snicko’s ability to detect bat on ball has rendered the chances of being dismissed caught behind to an enthusiastic appeal highly unlikely while leg before wicket (lbw) – always a decision in the eye of the beholder – now yields willingly to the Decision Review System (DRS) along with marginal run-outs and boundary rope catches.

Ironically, the human element, dealt with by the introduction in 2016 of “umpire’s call” – in which on-field decisions can only be reversed where technology reveals a clear error – is the one bit up for grabs. England captain Ben Stokes – up in arms over Zak Crawley being sent to the pavilion in India – called for its removal only recently. Mind you, he had just lost. Badly.

One has to be cautious near all of this. Sport, drama and emotion are what make its alchemy. But they are not ingredients for 20/20 vision. Nor are the legion of keyboard warriors and armchair commentators watching endless replays in the unenviable position of being given a whistle and told to keep their heads while all around are losing theirs. No sport finds it easy now to recruit and retain officials. Some of the abuse that forced rugby’s Wayne Barnes to quit early only proves that sport, social media and a lack of perspective are bad juju.

Officials, meanwhile, can by nature lean to the officious. Grassroots sport is riddled with those who confuse endless courses for a feel for the game and an understanding of the balance required to referee or umpire well. Ben Whitehouse proves professionals aren’t immune.

Sports folk too need to remember that the caprice of the officiating gods is not new. Former England batsman and selector, Ed Smith – an erudite student of What Sport Really Teaches Us About Life – believes that one of its lessons is what it teaches about luck and the deus ex machina. The bounce of the ball, the rub of the green, the mood of the ref. It explains why sportsmen are so intensely superstitious.

Technology is now too often that deus and yet it isn’t omniscient. Too often it’s only being used to confirm bias or to introduce a sterility which is at odds with the drama on which sports thrive.

As yet another metaphor for life, sport’s use of technology is teaching us something about the way we live in general: just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.  

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