AS GOOD as last week’s Premiership final was, I can’t help thinking after reviewing the game it was once again a game where the result on the pitch was decided by the match officials rather than the players.
After the TMO interrupted the game to tell referee Christophe Ridley that he had missed an illegal tackle by Beno Obano and needed to review it we got into a situation which is all too common now.
After a boring long deliberation between the TMO and the referee, Ridley finally decided to send Obano off despite the fact that it was Northampton’s No.8 Juarno Augustus who dipped into the tackle in an attempt to knock Obano away causing the head contact.
With just 21 minutes of the match played, Bath were reduced to 14 players but they did really well to contain Northampton to narrowly lose by just four points.
Watching the game, I thought that the referee had seen the tackle and decided it was okay and didn’t need any action on his part until the TMO intervened, which once made seemed to leave referee Ridley no option but to issue a card whether red or yellow. The referee could have chosen a yellow card with the potential of a bunker red which would have given the TMO longer to review the incident and make a fairer decision.
However, the red card forced Bath to play with 14 players for the remaining 59 minutes making a difference to how the game was played and probably influenced the result, despite Northampton’s Augustus, right, showing no sign of any injury as a result of the tackle, or being sent from the field for an HIA.
Although there are many times when action by the TMO has been shown to be necessary which, although it stops the flow of the game, has provided help to the referee to make the right decision.
However, on this occasion I don’t think the right decision was made, even after what seemed a prolonged review of the incident.
TMOs were bought into the game to enable all referees to clarify passages of play where they were either unsure or unsighted as to what had happened, but have now assumed a position that can under mine a referee’s authority.
Since their inclusion, the number of yellow and red cards have increased virtually season on season, making it appear that rugby is becoming a game less about players and more about the referees, TMOs and touch judges who will then decide who will win or lose.
The match officials are becoming less tolerant of contact in the game and are pinging every incident except those that obviously occur in set-pieces like crooked feeding at the scrum. Their influence on the game has always been an important factor in creating a watchable and safe match but now instead of being virtually invisible when a game was played, they dominate every aspect of a ma
