Rugby: Walsh shrugs off Brumbies row

Steve Walsh. Photo / Getty Images

At one stage of his turbulent refereeing life, Steve Walsh would have struggled to cope with his removal from a round of Super 14 matches.

But the new Walsh, who moved to Sydney to rebuild a career blighted by controversy and booze, is buoyant about controlling the Chiefs match against the Waratahs in Hamilton on Saturday.

Walsh was the target for the Brumbies' wrath in their match against the Waratahs on April 24.

In the washup to a spiteful game, Brumbies five-eighth Matt Giteau was fined $5000 for comments about it being pointless if Walsh controlled their next game against the Reds.

After several days of accusations and counter-arguments, Walsh exchanged duties with Chris Pollock who had been appointed to run this weekend's match in Hamilton.

"It was the first time in living memory I have seen that sort of pressure lead to a referee being swapped, so yeah, that is unusual," Walsh said from his Sydney base.

"However, I do agree with the decision because it would have been about me versus the Brumbies instead of the Reds versus the Brumbies. I agreed with it. It still was not pleasant going through it.

"It is the life of a referee and I understand that you are going to cop it sometimes and you have just got to be strong enough to get through it."

The 39-year-old found the whole ordeal difficult, from the way the game unfolded to the aftermath of public opinion and comment. In years gone by, Walsh might have reacted differently.

"But I dunno. With everything I have been through in the last few years, I feel in a really good space at the moment."

He had reviewed the match and his role and was now concentrating on getting into match mode for Hamilton.

After the blowup 10 days ago, Walsh said Giteau had been in contact although he would not reveal the method or contents of the correspondence. The referee assumed that communication had been part of the five-eighth's punishment but he did not want to go into any more detail or supposition.

He was glad they had been in touch for a variety of reasons.

"I am going to be doing work with the Wallabies this year so it has to be fine for both of us to get anything out of it.

"At some stage late last week I saw his interview and what he said was taken out of context, he seemed to say it with some sort of fun and jocularity," Walsh suggested.

The referee hinted at some media embellishment around the incident and did not think he would have any future issues with Giteau or his team.

"I have never found there to be any issue with him whatsoever so it will be interesting to see how we go but I have had worse than that happen to me before."

Walsh had learned a number of lessons from the incident.

"My strength of character can cause me pluses and minuses and I butted heads early on," he admitted. "I am absolutely adamant that poor scrums lead to a poor game of rugby and referees can't fix poor scrummaging. It is a player attitude thing. But I am looking forward to work again.

"At this time of the year, I am an ambitious guy and you want to get some flow into your refereeing.

"I felt like I was on a real flow. I had, for me, three good games in a row and I definitely did not referee as well as I had in those games. It is about trusting myself this week, believing in my ability and the number one thing is to have fun. If referees have fun it is a pretty good game."

A review of his work in the Brumbies-Waratahs match showed him several issues.

He could have alleviated some problems if he had dealt early with the scrum drama, though Walsh believed much of that revolved around player attitude.

He did not think his match management was as sharp as it needed to be early and that also contributed to some issues.

"The ball only came out of scrums 20 per cent of the time and I'm not sure what a ref can do about that.

"The other was my management and interaction with the Brumbies and in the first 15 minutes I did not feel connected or in the zone," said Walsh.