Respect for referees not what it used to be

"Not rolling away", "off his feet", "in from the side", "crooked-in", "forward", "not releasing", "dropping his bind" and "boring in", represent a tincture in number of the plaintive cries that will spew from the stands during the Six Nations Championship as exasperated supporters verbalise their feelings.

To some degree it’s white noise for a referee, loud but indistinct, but that’s not the case for the official when it’s the players that are claiming for all and sundry. It is a far cry from the days when etiquette dictated that only the respective captains could converse with the referee and that most outsourced lip was punishable by 10-metre increments backwards.

Watch any game now and it is striking to note the number of players appealing to, talking to/at, or questioning officials’ decisions. This in turn thrusts the referee into the spotlight every time the whistle is blown as all ears (those in the stands through Ref Link, while television and radio audiences pick up the exchanges on the referee’s mic) are cocked towards his explanation.

Some decisions are opaque enough to merit a detailed explanation but for the rest, half a sentence should suffice and not instead become the starting point for a conversation. Rugby had a reputation for the respect shown to officials but it is being eroded; from grassroots to test rugby.

Referees have a seminal influence on many matches so it is little wonder that all countries will analyse personal peccadilloes in style and interpretation, right down to cadence at scrum-time. A major bugbear for players, supporters and administrators outside reset scrums and the interminable referrals to the television match official, is the lack of consistency in interpretation.

Rigorously policed

It is something that World Rugby high-performance match official manager Joël Jutge will hope will be less prevalent, starting with the opening weekend of the

Six Nations

Championship.

The French man has already indicated through a couple of recent interviews the areas that will be rigorously policed in the tournament.

A major consideration will be placing the onus on the tackler to roll away from the tackle area. The days of players flapping around like a beached seal and then crawling out through their opponents’ side of the ruck won’t be tolerated.

The checklist for the referee at a tackle/ruck further includes the assist tackler releasing the ball carrier, the ball carrier letting go of the ball while the arriving players must go through the gate and stay on their feet.

There may be less tolerance at scrum-time than before with referees quicker to penalise rather than reset, thereby speeding up an area that had become a tedious time consumer. An emphasis will be placed on no movement at scrum-time prior to the ball feed and that the put-in is straight: no laughing down the back please.

There is a suggestion that the role of the loosehead prop at scrum-time will come under focus and that any deviation from straight will be punished. Jutge also encourages greater input and communication from the assistant referees.

France's Pascal Gaüzère will referee Ireland's clash with Italy in Rome on Saturday. Ambitious, he will enforce whatever edicts Jutge has laid down, to the letter of the law. It is matches like this one that will determine whether Gaüzère will be considered for, say a World Cup quarter-final, later this year.

Ireland gave away the least number of penalties (36) in last year's Six Nations while the Italians conceded the most (81). The Azzurri are known for lingering a little in the tackle/ruck area so Saturday will tell a tale.

Visualisation

England’s Wayne Barnes takes charge when France visit Dublin and he’s known as a strong character, who uses pre-match visualisation techniques to aid his decision-making process, particularly when it comes to the scrum.

“It is one of the most technically difficult areas to referee. I work with a specialist frontrow, Phil Kiefer, who was part of the England backroom team when they won the World Cup. We will look at what a good picture of a prop is, and what he looks like when he is in difficulty. The decision is not guesswork; it is making an accurate decision on the information available.”

South African Craig Joubert and New Zealand-born, Australian affiliate, Steve Walsh will referee Ireland's games against England at the Aviva Stadium and Wales at the Millennium Stadium respectively.

They’ll both be coming off refereeing Super 15, on hard, fast pitches, where the games are invariably played at a much higher tempo. The suggestion is that they tend to let a lot go in that tournament but the games are so fast that they can’t watch everything. They may take a match or two to acclimatise to the northern hemisphere.

Demanding

Of all the referees that Ireland will have Walsh is the one who is most demanding of his assistants, that they get involved and communicate quickly and succinctly. He also has an unhappy knack of running into players.

Another French man Jérôme Garcès – yes the same one who sent off Jared Payne and gave a yellow card to Wasps flanker Ashley Williams for aerial misdemeanours – will be in charge when Ireland travel to Murrayfield on the final weekend. He possesses very definite views on the scrum and is not afraid to brandish cards.

A wish list for he Six Nations? The lyrics to an Elvis Presley song spring to mind: “A little less conversation, a little more action, please.”

The Men in the Middle

Pascal Gauzere (Italy v Ireland, Stadio Olimpico)

The 37-year-old is very much a disciple of World Rugby’s refereeing guru and fellow Frenchman Joel Jutge. Last April he was the man in the middle when Leinster hosted Munster at the Aviva stadium in a Pro12 match and his statistics going into that match made for interesting reading. In 13 French Top 14 matches during that season he issued 23 yellow cards with 17 going to the away side. He is the least experienced of the referees that Ireland will have in terms of elite level rugby and given his ambition one that will officiate to the letter of the law.

Wayne Barnes (Ireland v France, Aviva stadium)

The 35-year-old Englishman is a professional referee, although he does find time to work a couple of days a week working as a barrister at Fulcrum Chambers. Those who seek to curry favour with him on the pitch would do well to note that his specific area of legal expertise is ‘Bribery and Corruption, serious and complex fraud, money laundering, asset forfeiture, tracing and confiscation.’ He took up refereeing as a 15-year-old following an injury as a player and was the youngest official to be appointed to the English RFU National panel of referees at 21. He presided over Ireland’s 2009 Grand Slam clinching victory over Wales at the Millennium stadium.

Craig Joubert (Ireland v England, Aviva stadium)

A native of Durban in South Africa, the 37-year-old is following in something of a family tradition as his father, Des, refereed at provincial level and encouraged his son to take up the whistle. He initially married a career in corporate banking with his officiating but after five years gave up the former to become a professional referee. At the 2011 World Cup he refereed one of the semi-finals and the final between the All Blacks and France. Another landmark in recent years saw him referee a match between Mexico and Jamaica, the opening qualifying match for the World Cup which takes in England later this year.

Steve Walsh (Wales v Ireland, Millennium stadium)

At the tender age of 13 he suffered a spinal injury while playing rugby and following a scan it was revealed that a birth defect meant he only had two-and-a-half vertebrae in his neck; he could no longer play contact sports. He’s been brutally honest about his destructive relationship with alcohol – he hasn’t touched it since 2009 – stating: “I was definitely a binge drinker. Right from the first time I got drunk, I drank to black out, and if I didn’t drink to black out, I didn’t think I’d had a good night. I used alcohol because I felt uncomfortable with who I was.” He has a tattoo on his inner left forearm that reads: “he who controls himself, controls the game.”

Jerome Garces (Scotland v Ireland, Murrayfield)

The 41-year-old from Pau has been refereeing at elite test match level since 2010 and has been involved in several controversial moments. He once gave 11 penalties in 12 scrums during a Heineken Cup match between the Ospreys and Saracens, while also sin binning Schalk Britz for early engagement at a scrum. He sent off Jared Payne after four minutes of Ulster’s defeat to Saracens in April last year but only issued Wasps flanker Ashley Williams with a yellow card for a similar incident involving Leinster’s Dave Kearney last month. He’s noted for his excellent fitness and certainly isn’t afraid of brandishing yellow cards; at one point in his career issuing 11 in 14 matches in European competition.