Rugby will go to video refs. Get used to it, says PETER JESSUP.
Springbok coach Nick Mallett and his England counterpart, Clive Woodward, are both advocates of the video referee. Being on the losing side in recent matches against the All Blacks and the Wallabies took some of the sting out of their comments, but their calls will be heard.
Professionalism will demand it. When players are paid $300,000-plus and the future of clubs and competitions depends on credibility, the video referee has to come.
Fans will not continue to watch their sides lose test matches to bad refereeing calls. In the long run public outcry over incorrect decisions, and pressure to get them right, will bring about change, as it was in the 13-man code.
Rugby league's system was set up largely through the efforts of former premiership and international referee Graham Annesley in 1996, following a string of disturbingly bad decisions that turned games. Initially it was only supposed to cover the act of forcing the ball. That soon changed.
"It quickly became obvious that we had to expand the jurisdiction of the video referee because the credibility of the whole operation was in doubt. What if the video referee clearly saw a player put a foot in touch, then go on to place the ball correctly over the line? He would have to call a try, even though he and everyone who had seen it at the ground and at home on television knew it wasn't a try.
"The system had to be more flexible, so that when a video referee saw something that clearly ruled a try out, he could call that."
So the only area the video referee is not entitled to call on now is the forward pass. Reason: There aren't enough cameras to correctly call all suspect passes. And anyway, Annesley says, the forward movement is a subjective call - the forward motion has to be measured between the players rather than across the ground. Angles off television can be very deceiving.
As far as Annesley is concerned, the NRL's operation is as good as it can get. The only improvement would be extra cameras - high shots over the dead-ball line and more wide angles from the roof to check whether players were offside at a kick.
"I know there are varying views, but you have to look at the system overall, not at isolated incidents," Annesley says. "The fact is, we have eliminated the blatant errors referees were making in calling on the scoring of tries."
The problem for rugby is not in determining whether to use video refs - that is inevitable - it is deciding what areas of the game the video review will cover. Just the act of forcing the ball? Just the try-scoring movement? What if the scoring movement started behind the attacker's goal-line and swept the length of the field - should the video referee call it up for a technical infringement in a ruck or maul?
And, of course, the video referee is not always the right answer.
It's worth recalling an incident from the early days of video-linked league decisions. The reviewer was asked for a decision, called for replays and decided it was a no-try. He called it that way. But he was not holding down the communication button that linked him to the ref for both words, and the ref heard only the second one. Try.
Rugby: Only time before video used
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