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'He does not come back on the pitch' - The latest bizarre waterboy incident
By Ian Cameron
Once again an incident involving a water carrier is making rugby headlines - this time in the Gallagher Premiership.
Wasps' waterboy at the Coventry Building Society Stadium was told to leave the field by referee Wayne Barnes and to not return after he was involved in a minor scuffle with Exeter Chiefs' Henry Slade.
Slade went after an errant ball that had been thrown away by a Wasps player, when one of the home side's waterboys, who was standing behind the posts, found himself in the England centre's way. A tussle ensued, which then ignited a larger scuffle against the sponsor boards involving around 20 players.
After getting a rundown of the incident from the TMO, Barnes can be heard saying: "That water carrier over there does not come back on the pitch."
What's more, RugbyPass understands that this was the second Wasps waterboy sent to the sidelines by Barnes during the 80 minutes, with another member of the home side's staff given his marching orders early in proceedings.
Former England No.8 Lawrence Dallaglio, who was on commentary for BT Sport, noted that “Water carriers and their role within the game is an ongoing debate."
It's the latest incident involving water carriers. During a recent Rugby Championship match between South Africa and New Zealand, referee Matthew Carley was forced to tell South Africa's watercarrier to desist from harassing the linesman.
The Bok waterboy could be seen following the assistant referee up the sideline, talking to him to in an insistent manner after an attempted 50:22. On that occasion, Carley took the waterboy aside and warned him that he would send him off if he continued to harang the AR on the touchline. “If I see you chasing our touch judge up the line again, you’ll be off.”
After the game Springboks head coach Jacques Nienaber told the press that he was behind the waterboy's actions. "I’ll put my hand on up and say we got it wrong and we asked him to challenge. We were so sure but then we looked back at the video and saw that we got it completely wrong."
The incidents have certainly opened up the debate around what's appropriate behaviour for the water carriers.
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After a fairly simple Pac4, the BFs will find out a lot about themselves in September when they face the rampaging RedRoses at Twickenham in front of a record crowd. After that they will face them again in Canada in WXV1. They also have France to contend with. Will be interesting to see what Australia have to offer with Jo Yapp at the helm.
Go to commentsSuper Rugby Pacific has been better as a spectacle due to the emphasis on speeding the game up and I’d look at taking things a step further. Instead of giving teams 90 seconds to take a conversion, let’s bring that down 60 seconds. You could also look at allowing 45 seconds for a penalty goal. Maybe teams could get 20 seconds instead of 30 to form a scrum before the ref then starts the engagement process. However, this year the most pleasing change is the added competitiveness in the Trans Tasman matches. What does frustrate me is how the rugby media in Australasia allow the the whole ‘‘rugby is boring’’/’’rugby yawnion’’ narrative to take hold from from vindictive league types, the chairman of the ARL commission and News Limited Australia. Stick up for the game and shift the narrative!
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