IT TAKES A lot for players to openly moan about rugby referees these days.
The treatment the sport gives its officials is continually presented as a high water mark for the ‘rugby values’ the game attempts to brand itself with.
Tommy Dickson / INPHO
Tommy Dickson / INPHO / INPHO
On Saturday, referee Ian Davies drew more ire than usual while presiding over Leinster’s 16 – 13 inter-pro win over Munster at the Aviva Stadium, not least from Jonathan Sexton and Eoin Reddan on the stroke of half-time.
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Sexton’s annoyance was primarily at the assistant referee in this instance. The out-half struggled to recognise how the job description translated to the moment when Simon Zebo seemed to slap a loose ball into touch.
“It’s two feet in front of the touch judge,” Sexton said post-match, “I don’t know how he’s not helping out.
“They’re meant to be called assistant referees now, they’re meant to have as big a role as the referee and it’s two feet in front of him, a blatant slap into touch. Arguably, if that’s foul play I think the rule is that Zebo wouldn’t have been there, which arguably could have been a penalty try and a yellow card.
“Or maybe not, I haven’t seen it on TV yet, I saw it live and myself and Eoin weren’t too happy that he didn’t at least check it upstairs.”
The scorer of all 16 of Leinster’s points added: ”I think he knew that he probably should have, but he had blown up for half-time. I’ll look at it on the video and maybe it won’t be as clear cut as I thought it was at the time, or was it?
“Maybe the referee didn’t have a great view because there’s players running in front of him, but the assistant referees are right there. I don’t know how one of them didn’t see it because he’s right there.
“Thankfully it’s not a decision that cost us, but it could have.”
That’s an important point to make. That one decision that denied Leinster the opportunity to inflate their halfway lead from 10 – 6 to something more did not end up effecting the final result. Indeed, Sexton seemed to be the beneficiary of a crucial Davies decision – or non-decision – midway through the second period.
While the number 10 was lining up the game-winning 64th minute penalty, Davies could be heard telling Sexton that he was inside the final 10 seconds of the minute allowed to kick at goal. The Leinster out-half was unmoved, and continued his routine before making contact with the ball 21 seconds later.
Mad
Swings and roundabouts, maybe, but the end result of the weekend sees Leinster move to the top of the table. Perfectly placed to make a tilt for the only silverware available to them.
“We honestly don’t sit down and say,” Sexton said when asked how the pre-season goals matched up with the current state of play.
“We used to when (Michael) Cheika was there. He was mad. He’d have pictures of the trophies up all around the place. It was just clear what the goals were.
“I think we’ve changed a lot. It was probably Joe’s influence of trying to do your best every day, not looking too far ahead, trying to build week-on-week.
Sexton turns after scoring Leinster's try. He decided to run into the post en route to the score. Billy Stickland / INPHO
Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO
“With Leo we divided the season up into segments: there was the World Cup period. There was the period before the Six Nations. There was the Six Nations. Then, there is the end of the season. We were setting goal through those periods.
“We’re on track, I suppose, in the League. We let ourselves down in Europe…
“We need to be a lot better if we want to challenge for the title. Teams like Glasgow now are bubbling – they’re going to be in the top four and to challenge a team like that we are going to have to be much better than we are at the moment.
“That’s the challenge, but we’re all back together now for two months and hopefully we can build something, get that semi-final first and then worry about it when we get there.”
I thought we created. It was pretty clear we had a game plan to get back to the edge. I don’t think we did it as well as we could have, at times, when we had those overlaps. We probably needed to flatten up. At times, we shifted the ball too early.
“We have plenty to work on. We probably went across the pitch too much. We need to straighten things in those outside channels. But, at times, we did it really well and we looked dangerous.”
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'It's two feet in front of the touch judge': Sexton baffled by non-decisions from officials
IT TAKES A lot for players to openly moan about rugby referees these days.
The treatment the sport gives its officials is continually presented as a high water mark for the ‘rugby values’ the game attempts to brand itself with.
On Saturday, referee Ian Davies drew more ire than usual while presiding over Leinster’s 16 – 13 inter-pro win over Munster at the Aviva Stadium, not least from Jonathan Sexton and Eoin Reddan on the stroke of half-time.
Sexton’s annoyance was primarily at the assistant referee in this instance. The out-half struggled to recognise how the job description translated to the moment when Simon Zebo seemed to slap a loose ball into touch.
“It’s two feet in front of the touch judge,” Sexton said post-match, “I don’t know how he’s not helping out.
“They’re meant to be called assistant referees now, they’re meant to have as big a role as the referee and it’s two feet in front of him, a blatant slap into touch. Arguably, if that’s foul play I think the rule is that Zebo wouldn’t have been there, which arguably could have been a penalty try and a yellow card.
“Or maybe not, I haven’t seen it on TV yet, I saw it live and myself and Eoin weren’t too happy that he didn’t at least check it upstairs.”
The scorer of all 16 of Leinster’s points added: ”I think he knew that he probably should have, but he had blown up for half-time. I’ll look at it on the video and maybe it won’t be as clear cut as I thought it was at the time, or was it?
“Maybe the referee didn’t have a great view because there’s players running in front of him, but the assistant referees are right there. I don’t know how one of them didn’t see it because he’s right there.
“Thankfully it’s not a decision that cost us, but it could have.”
That’s an important point to make. That one decision that denied Leinster the opportunity to inflate their halfway lead from 10 – 6 to something more did not end up effecting the final result. Indeed, Sexton seemed to be the beneficiary of a crucial Davies decision – or non-decision – midway through the second period.
While the number 10 was lining up the game-winning 64th minute penalty, Davies could be heard telling Sexton that he was inside the final 10 seconds of the minute allowed to kick at goal. The Leinster out-half was unmoved, and continued his routine before making contact with the ball 21 seconds later.
Mad
Swings and roundabouts, maybe, but the end result of the weekend sees Leinster move to the top of the table. Perfectly placed to make a tilt for the only silverware available to them.
“We honestly don’t sit down and say,” Sexton said when asked how the pre-season goals matched up with the current state of play.
“We used to when (Michael) Cheika was there. He was mad. He’d have pictures of the trophies up all around the place. It was just clear what the goals were.
“I think we’ve changed a lot. It was probably Joe’s influence of trying to do your best every day, not looking too far ahead, trying to build week-on-week.
“With Leo we divided the season up into segments: there was the World Cup period. There was the period before the Six Nations. There was the Six Nations. Then, there is the end of the season. We were setting goal through those periods.
“We’re on track, I suppose, in the League. We let ourselves down in Europe…
“We need to be a lot better if we want to challenge for the title. Teams like Glasgow now are bubbling – they’re going to be in the top four and to challenge a team like that we are going to have to be much better than we are at the moment.
“That’s the challenge, but we’re all back together now for two months and hopefully we can build something, get that semi-final first and then worry about it when we get there.”
“We have plenty to work on. We probably went across the pitch too much. We need to straighten things in those outside channels. But, at times, we did it really well and we looked dangerous.”
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Inter-pros and the rest of the weekend’s Pro12 highlights
‘Putting a knife to people’s throats isn’t going to help the cause’ – Foley
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heat of the moment Inter-pro Jonathan Sexton Leinster Munster Pro12