Wynne Gray: Refs' howlers not helped by lack of protection

Arguments about referees have flooded rugby's landscape since John Dewar Dallas decided Bob Deans did not score at Cardiff Arms Park in 1905.

By all accounts Dallas was fit but he wore street gear and ordinary shoes so was not fast chasing the All Blacks centre as he headed towards the Wales tryline.

That incident has never lost traction and every generation since has their favourite grizzles about the men wielding the Acme Thunderers.

So Steve Reid Walsh, in the gun for his Super 14 work in the Waratahs game against the Brumbies, is in good company.

There were the "atrocities" delivered by officials against the All Blacks on the tour of South Africa in 1960 or it could have been the performance of referee Kevin Kelleher when he sent Pinetree off at Murrayfield in 1967.

A year later, the All Blacks got the benefit of referee Kevin Crowe's decision to award them a match-winning penalty try against the Wallabies in Brisbane. A decade on, they needed Roger Quittendon's whistle to rescue them against Wales while Andy Haden performed a clumsy Swan Lake.

Every Frenchman will recall Welsh referee Derek Bevan being awarded a gold watch for his work at the World Cup in 1995 after the Springboks managed to thwart the Tricolores in pouring rain in a Durban semifinal. Paddy O'Brien made a complete hash of a World Cup game in 1999 - and then there was the beloved Wayne Barnes at the 2007 World Cup.

Provincial games have brought the undetected Hand of Purvie incident, Colin Hawke facing the ire of Otago after penalising David Latta in 1994 then awarding a penalty try against them the next year as they unsuccessfully chased the Ranfurly Shield against Auckland.

Walsh was not flash in Canberra last Saturday. He got rattled and lost control. Just as the players did and other senior referees such as Jonathan Kaplan have this season.

In rugby's earliest years, players were able to appeal for rulings to field umpires, who then consulted the match referee. In other words, he got some assistance. These days, match officials get little protection.

They are under repeated slow-motion TV scrutiny, they have to rule on a variety of unworkable laws, they have to watch 30 players at once, they get marginal guidance from their assistants and cop relentless criticism.

Great job, huh?

If ever a game needed several on-field officials it is rugby. Not touchjudges peering at incidents from 45 metres across the field, but officials up close and on top of the action which has sped up tenfold since John Dallas struggled more than a century ago.

Take a couple of simple ideas.

Referees either side of the scrum might, just might, remove some of the time wasting and collapses.

Zero tolerance and get on with the game.

Get one Thunderer on the track to monitor the team with the ball, the other to rule on defenders and penalise them for cribbing half a metre at every breakdown. Punish them until they comply, forget the "get back six!", "on-side, number three!" nonsense.

And for a novel idea, how about ruling when players are tackled they have to release the ball immediately? Not when they have scanned the field to see if they have support or have done several forward rolls with a half twist to soak up time or have laid the ball somewhere under their torso until the cavalry appears.

You could go on. Some refs are better than others at controlling this mayhem, like all of us they have strong days and mediocre. Somehow they adjudicate whether a rolling maul is illegal or not.

They will have Walsh days, Honiss moments, Bray blips, Hawke howlers and Lawrence lowpoints.

But who wouldn't, with a lawbook which makes applied bio-mechanics seem a doddle and a game where players are coached to bend and circumvent that confusion?