All in the scrum

A rugby miscellany compiled by JOHNNY WATTERSON:

A true custodian of game: Pearson takes the plaudits

REFEREE DAVE Pearson surely deserves credit for his handling of an incident just after the hour during Ulster’s match against Clermont Auvergne on Saturday. Ulster backrow Chris Henry chased down a ball, which Clermont’s Brock James gathered and cleared.

Henry slowed as he approached but left the shoulder there and nudged James on to the ground. The Australian rolled around in agony.

Pearson, who could be seen looking directly at the incident simply turned away and if you could read his mind the word ‘disgust’ might have been at the forefront.

It should have been a penalty and even a warning for Henry but Pearson chose to ride with the spirit of the game, which is not to writhe on the ground like a Premier League millionaire.

Is he not one of the real custodians of the game?

ROG RECORDS

RONAN O’GARA will at some point in the next few years look back on all of his records and wonder who will ever break them.

His current tally of 83 consecutive Heineken Cup matches is surely a mark few will reach. The format has changed over the seasons but if Munster got to the final every year they would have, in the current system, played nine matches, six pool games, a quarter, semi and final each year.

That makes him a consistent presence in the Munster European Cup side for easily more that nine consecutive years as Munster have not got to the final every year.

Opta Index points the finger at Sexton:  While Brown is top performer overall

THE AMLIN Opta Index has spewed out some hardcore stuff this week. Using mathematical formulae and modelling to objectively compare player performances in the Amlin Challenge and Heineken Cup, the index rates players’ overall contributions.

Leinster outhalf Jonathan Sexton (right) picked up the top outhalf award, while Harlequins Mike Brown is regarded as the top-performing player overall.

The fullback and England hopeful is the joint-top try scorer in the Heineken Cup prior to this weekend with five including two against Toulouse in the fourth round.

No other player in the club has made more metres (248) and no player in the competition has beaten more defenders than him. That was 21 in the last count.

Sexton, by the way, has the second highest rating of backline players with 1,613 points, while fullback Rob Kearney comes in fifth with 1,369 points.

** THERE IS much comment around about EU Law and the IRFU’s new stance on non-Irish eligible players in the provinces. Those in the know seem to believe the IRFU may have to go 12 rounds on this one as a fellow called Bosman set the tone some years ago on perceived discrimination of employment.

It’s inconceivable that the IRFU didn’t anticipate a possible trip through the courts before they aired their views on cutting back on particular contracts.

Then again some of the IRFU may be members of a certain golf club in Dublin that sought court approval via the Equal Status Act on what many believed to be a risible discriminatory policy on women membership. The golf club won that one in the Irish Supreme Court.

If the law shows anything it is that simple issues are often not what they seem to be.