Owen Doyle: World Rugby’s sanction on Rassie Erasmus must fit crime

The witching hour approaches, and it’s not just Halloween.

An incomprehensible delay, but at last the Rassie Erasmus disciplinary hearing is about to take place and there is much bated breath in the air. While we await the outcome, let’s take a moment to wind the clock back a little.

December 2009: When international referee, George Clancy, blew the final whistle on a very tight All-Ireland League match, Shannon being pipped by Cork Constitution by a single point via a late offside penalty, he would have had no idea what awaited him. That fixture - essentially, a tough Limerick versus Cork derby - is never an easy match to officiate, but what happened next was unacceptable, scandalous.

The verbal abuse which rained down on Clancy was at a level which no arbiter, in any sport, deserves. It was vitriolic and came from men who should have, but didn’t, know better. That Shannon vitriol did not go unnoticed by the IRFU who immediately held a disciplinary hearing. The outcome was a high level sanction which was as necessary, as it was exemplary. Shannon were fined €25,000, plus a suspended six-point league deduction.

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For an amateur club it was a costly, hard, pill to swallow, but the IRFU would not tolerate what had happened, and sent out the clearest message. It was also a very sad day in the history of one of Ireland’s most famous rugby institutions. There wasn’t a club in the land where this sanction did not reverberate; it was a salutary reminder to everybody that this type of “behaviour” would bring down the wrath of the governing body. And rightly so.

Make no mistake, World Rugby is facing an even bigger problem. Erasmus did not deliver a spontaneous, intemperate, post-match outburst, but, rather, a carefully considered public attack on refereeing.

What will World Rugby do, where will it all go? Well, after months of delay, we will know soon enough, and one can only hope that it is, at the very least, proportionate to the Shannon sanction. And, ‘proportionate’ must take into account that international rugby is many, many notches above the All-Ireland league.

Intolerable

Amateurs behaving badly is intolerable, and it is surely a sequitur that an International Director of Rugby, in the professional game, cannot be allowed to escape the full rigour of World Rugby’s very own regulations. South Africa’s request for a public hearing has been rightly denied, but the written judgement will tell all. I do not know if South Africa, and Erasmus, will argue the legal rights and wrongs of the regulations, perhaps argue the minutiae of the wording, effectively attempting to overturn the charges.

What I do know, is that it would far better serve the game for an admittance of guilt, and acceptance of the sanction which is surely coming in any case. But, at this stage of the proceedings, it’s hard to see Erasmus throwing himself at the mercy of the court.

A good friend suggested recently that the delay in hearing the case indicated that there has been some plea-bargaining going on. I really hope not, and that World Rugby will be sure footed in how they approach and finalise this issue. Failure will put referees in an impossible position, and create a very dangerous precedent.

All of that is not to suggest for a second that poor performances by match officials should avoid fair, balanced criticism. Connacht coach Andy Friend has made well-reasoned points after his team’s recent defeat to Munster, and it’s easy to understand why he made these in the public domain, there was no-one available at head office. Ulster referee, Chris Busby, currently shows definite merit, but he needed better input from experienced TMO, Brian MacNeice.

The bottom line on that Munster try is that MacNeice made the call, without involving the referee. Something so tight must be finalised only after consultation with the man in the middle; otherwise he’s flying blind. That was the correct thing to do, and it should have been done; then, whatever the decision, due process would have been seen to have been followed. The optics were simply awful.

But the problem is deeper, more fundamental - the inescapable core of it all is that match official performances in the URC are not anywhere near the standard required. All Unions involved need to take a long, hard, look in the mirror, and review every dot and comma of their elite referee development strategy. Without that, don’t expect things to get any better, any time soon.

Coaches will have more to question as the season develops, and, one wonders, who will referee the very key matches as the competition evolves, and then reaches its sharp end?

Five-year plan

In 2018, Greg Garner the URC (then Pro14) referee manager outlined his five-year plan for refereeing excellence. He has now gone, there is no plan, no excellence, and he is yet to be replaced, nearly a third of the way into the ‘pool’ stages - it’s hardly the stuff of an elite competition. At last, an appointment is, we hear, on the way, and, whoever it is (rumours a-plenty abound), the appointed one will need to get their feet under the desk pretty damn quickly.

Also of key importance is that every tournament and Union referee managers follow the lead from World Rugby, and educate all match officials accordingly. Too often, they want to travel an independent road, and do not agree with World Rugby on certain issues.

When that occurs, the place to argue the toss is with World Rugby, not with match officials who can only become confused by a formula of mixed messages. Too many cooks have too often spoiled the broth.

Very recently, there was a real, important, hope that coaches and match officials would become much closer and work better together, with the appointment of Joe Schmidt as High Performance Director at World Rugby. It was not a new off-the-peg suit, rather it seemed tailor-made for him, and one which would have supported and complemented the elite referee function, headed up by Frenchman Joel Jutge.

What a pity Schmidt will depart shortly, after barely a year in office. And while everybody understands his wish to spend more time with his family, there must be a lot of silent weeping and gnashing of teeth in World Rugby, their carefully laid plans lie askew. Refilling this role will be very far from easy.

At the same time it’s impossible to believe that Schmidt’s high level rugby race is run. Where it will turn next who knows, bets no doubt are already being laid.