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Pedantic refereeing is 'killing' rugby union says Wallaby great

Taniela Tupou of the Reds prepares during the warm-up before the round 6 Super RugbyAU match between the NSW Waratahs and the Queensland Reds at Stadium Australia (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

Former Wallaby fullback Chris Latham has taken aim at pedantic refereeing in rugby union, which he believes is killing interest in the sport and neutering the physical contest at its core.

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Speaking at media conference prior the Reds Waratahs game, Latham didn’t pull his punches in verbalizing what many fans – both inside and outside of Australia – feel about the direction the sport has taken.

Latham took aim at the handling of a recent citing for Reds prop Taniela Tupou over a clearout. The clearout was deemed to be good on the day in question but was later brought before a SANZAAR disciplinary panel anyway.

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      Luckily for the tighthead, it was deemed that the red card threshold has not been met and the citing was dismissed, saving the prop from a two-game suspension.

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      The whole thing left a sour taste in Latham’ s mouth, as the Daily Mail Australia reported.

      “It was cleared by the video referee, it was cleared by the ref. The commentary team, who are ex-players, they’re experts in the game, they’ve cleared it, yet SANZAAR still want to keep dragging it through.

      “To have that all cleared and then to have the potential to lose one of your big-name players before one of the biggest games of the season is just wrong.”

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      For Latham, it’s indicative a greater malaise in the 15-man code, which is struggling to hold its audience in Australia.

      “From a pure rugby point of view and as a purist of the game, we’re really killing the game with all these stoppages,” said the Latham, who won 78 Wallabies caps.  ‘Rugby’s an inclusive sport. We cater for bigger-boned men and women, the tall and short. If we take the contest out of the game, what do we become – a game that caters for one body shape.

      “The beauty of our game is the contest in every element of the game, whether it’s the scrum, the lineout, the breakdown. Even the contest for high ball has become whoever comes off worst gets the penalty, instead of the one who gets the ball, gets the ball.’

      Latham isn’t the only one exasperated by the Tupou citing. Red coach Brad Thorn was spewing over it.

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      “I had some words I was going to say if it’d gone through; I would have been really unhappy about that,” Thorn said of the Tupou verdict.  “It’s good that common sense prevailed. If you’re going to make rulings around that sort of thing then you need to change the name of the game, call it something else. That was a very good clean out … the people and players enjoy that physicality. You don’t want to lose that.”

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      Comments

      1 Comment
      G
      Geoff 1212 days ago

      I tend to agree. It's really just deliberate or really reckless and dangerous contact to the head that needs to be clarified and clamped down. But you can't avoid everything. Injuries are going to happen in a full contact sport. There's a bit of play at your own risk involved.

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      SK 1 hour ago
      Lessons the Wallabies must heed to turn Lions heartbreak into future success

      Brett I love your fresh take on the picture that needed to be painted and ultimately wasnt. I agree there just wasnt enough in it for the ref to call it back and ultimately the ref was consistent the whole night at the breakdown. Australia are damned disheartened now but look how close it came to beating a team Campo said would thrash them by 30. This is the perfect prep for the Rugby Championship and the Boks and NZ. The Boks will be able to bring a scary pack to face the Aussies but it will be just as scary as facing these lads and so the Wallabies for me are making progress. They are not quite the finished article and the soft moments and tries and passive defence just proves it. Schmidt was brought in to make Australia better, he was brought in to make sure Australia improved in time for the Lions to avoid an embarrassment and look he has done that and taken them close so while the result is gutting its a job well done so far. lets see if they can take one step further and pilfer a test off these patchy Lions. Just a quick word on refs and the laws. Can we please tell World Rugby to simplify the game. At least 5 or 6 laws were examined in the wake of the last minute cleanout and several said Tizzano should have been pinged, others say Morgan should have been pinged. If former players and refs cant agree on what the right call was then it means the game is too complex. The refs have a clear mandate to let the game flow. I agree with that but the laws must support the refs. Right now they do not and leave too many holes for the refs to plug. The result is a furore after every major engagement between nations where the refs are abused.

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      I
      IkeaBoy 2 hours ago
      'The Wallabies only have themselves to blame': How the Lions sunk Australia in Melbourne

      I’m a proud Irishman with a weakness for the underdog. My only stake in the game was an Aussie win to take the series to a decider. Even overlooking the actual clear out - which was the only thing Piardi instructed the TMO to review - I think it’s very easy to be objective and say that Australia got done on the calls.


      It’s a phase of play that unfolds in less than 10 seconds but is fairly easy to breakdown.


      1 - Ryan (#19 Lions) is tackled legally, goes to ground in possession of the ball but makes no effort to release the ball. He has to immediately once he goes to ground. PENALTY.


      2 - Tizzano (#21 Australia) is first man to the ball (from either team) and forms the ruck with his own hindfoot. Side entry doesn’t apply to him as the ruck is not formed at this stage but rather it’s formed by him. NO PENALTY.


      3 - Even to completely ignore the actual clear out (penalty/no penalty), foul play can still have occurred without the need for a HIA. The fact that Tizzano is walking around and available for the next match doesn’t mean he didn’t get emptied. His mouthguard data does seem to have registered an almighty force though. 50/50.


      4 - Both Morgan (#20 Lions) and Genge (#17 Lions) go to clear out but both do so by driving through the ruck off their feet and falling over the ball. Sealing. PENALTY


      5 - I still don’t understand why none of the coverage picks up on this - Morgan holds Tizzano’s feet in a wrap on the pitch after the clear out. On the match clock it’s 79.03 to 79.07 before he releases. Playing the player off the ball. PENALTY


      Piardi controls the narrative when reviewing with the TMO and starts on the wrong foot. The discussion is all on the basis that both sets of players arrive at the same time (which changes mitigation around foul play) which they don’t. They clearly don’t as Tizzano is first to the ball.


      For 79 mins that match was brilliant. The crowd was brilliant. The atmosphere seemed brilliant. It’s a loss on the sport that a gang of mic’d up officials can not get it right.

      179 Go to comments
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