this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
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Rugby Union
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Never seen the ref in this Scotland vs Fiji game, but I can understand how Fiji are struggling with him given his 0 comms style. Most of the Fiji players will be used to SH form of refereeing where there's information flowing from the referee confirming when ruck has formed, when hands should be off etc.
Instead this bloke just pings them over & over, its not cheating or anything but really Fiji are playing against 16 Scotland just get to piggy back down the field by kicking penalties rather than having to play much rugby to get territory. Very ugly sort of game to watch.
I was in the stadium, and he was pretty whistle happy. Even with the ref going to the PA he wasn't forthcoming for lots of explanation. Fiji out of window are a different breed, that was a tough game for them. Still, they did string together 3 unanswered tries, so there is something for them to take away. The welsh better be on their game next week!
Yeah, I don't mind that he had to penalise Fiji because they were infringing a lot; but for mine its not a very proactive refereeing style. I know some people hate referees "coaching" the players, but because there's so many possible things happening at once I think its a rational response which keeps the game flowing and rugby being played rather than referee forceback.
The ruck calls etc were mostly right but if he'd communicated the Fijians would have stopped what they were doing & he wouldn't have had to whistle. There were other calls I thought were a bit questionable - the obstruction below and blowing so many scrum penalties when the ball was already won.
I really hate knock-on scrums turning into scrum penalties, i'd favour free-kicks unless the feeding team is attacking in the opposition 22m or something. A scrum happens to re-start the game after a mistake, so in effect at the moment we end up penalising knock-ons and forward passes which just feels a bit overly harsh.
And that "obstruction" call near the end of the first half was pretty whack. Almost 0 impact on the tacklers ability to effect anything on Lemani who had released the box kick before he got there anyway (ie, at worst he blocked a late tackle).