“If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same ...” Rudyard Kipling’s wondrous words best describe Ireland’s performance against Australia.
With many areas of their game malfunctioning, Ireland still fashioned out a most unlikely victory. It was based on tremendous true grit, coupled with a relentless refusal to be beaten. Plus a marvellous piece of derring-do on the stroke of half-time, Jamison Gibson-Park touching down for a brilliant and critical score. In the end, it was the difference.
There was lots of discussion about Ireland skipper Dan Sheehan’s disallowed try. Controversial? I don’t think so, there was little option for referee Ben O’Keeffe – James Ryan clearly obstructed defender Rob Valetini. Maybe the Australian player couldn’t have prevented the score, who knows? But he was entitled to be able to attempt to do so. Imagine the bedlam if this NFL-type of running block was allowed. It was just surprising that the referee took so long to make the call, despite multiple replays.
Sheehan queried O’Keeffe on it, and then continued to the debate the incident at the next stoppage. The captain really was just going around in circles at that point and the referee should not have indulged him. I’m not sure what Sheehan was trying to achieve, perhaps he would have better spent the time motivating and encouraging his team. It’s important that the top officials clamp down on continuous over-querying of decisions even when it’s the captain. It’ll cause chaos if it filters down through the levels.
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Joe Schmidt is a very good analyst of a referee’s performance, and you can bet that O’Keeffe will be hearing from him. O’Keeffe has been a leading official for quite a while now, but some of the shine seems to have gone missing in recent times. While referees like to keep things moving along, there are times when sanctions are necessary.
O’Keeffe eventually got around to warning Australia for too many penalty offences in their defensive zone. Lachlan Shaw was then rightly yellow carded, but it was a call that should have been made much earlier.
To say that this freshly minted Nations Championship started off with a spectacular American style Fourth of July fireworks display would do it scant justice. Across the board the rugby was terrific. It’s another message to leave the laws alone, just let’s have the lineout refereed correctly. If Australia cannot sell the game to potential fans based on what we saw on Saturday, well, there’s no chance.
Proceedings had earlier gotten under way with a match of quite epic proportions. Both New Zealand and France had turned up to play rugby, and, with referee Luke Pearce having a fine match, all the ingredients were nicely in place. Some years ago it was agreed that in the event of a particularly tricky decision, the referee would be permitted to give a longer explanation as to why the call had been made.
But it has now been stretched way beyond its original intention. It’s a growing practice for every decision, and indeed non-decision, to be accompanied by long-winded chat. It often sounds much more like justification, rather than explanation. Pearce, who recently reduced his verbals, was back to his old ways. And we got it in two languages.
However, that is the only criticism of him, on a day when he got most things right, and clearly got good buy-in from both teams. The players worked to comply with what the referee wanted. At scrum time he correctly penalised the tighthead of both teams for pancaking to the floor; their feet were so far behind them that they couldn’t possibly stay up. Too often we see the opposing prop being blamed for hinging down when this happens, whereas he actually can do nothing else but fold downwards.
Pearce also did well to sanction an illegal throw to the front of a lineout. Far too often these are consistently and incorrectly being ignored. Neither did he adopt a laissez-faire approach, of which at times he has been guilty, but picked out the clear and obvious stuff. It was a performance which should receive full approval. Just quieten things down, please.
France were unlucky when a very long TMO check decreed that Max Spring had knocked on ruling out a try. It was very slight, even marginal, but once the TMO becomes involved everything is forensically, microscopically examined. Coach Fabien Galthié will also ask Pearce to look at a potential block on his scrumhalf Maxime Lucu by Ardie Savea. It was a 50/50 call that might have gone in favour of France, certainly if it was a box kick. The New Zealand captain knew what he was doing in my reading of it, but the ref played on.
There was Irish interest in Wales v Fiji. Eoghan Cross was the man in the middle, and gave a calm, assured performance, with scrums probably needing a different approach. There are a total of 16 referees covering the 18 matches with Cross being the only one yet to referee a Six Nations match.
[ Rugby’s new bonkers era dawns with tries galore in perfect conditionsOpens in new window ]
However, as the World Cup is going to need a couple more referees than the usual 12, he’s in with a chance – a good autumn could well earn him a Six Nations, and that might just be enough to see the Limerick man make it. Two of the current 16 will miss out, so it’ll be hellishly tight. But it certainly won’t be for the want of trying.
