Why make refs the centre of attention?

I wanted to share with you a fear that I have that rugby is losing its ethos. I had always thought that respect for team-mates, opponents and match-officials was part and parcel of the game, for both players and fans. Yet more and more we have opposition kickers being booed (of course this has always happened in France, but I was shocked to hear booing in Ireland recently); we have players trying to con the ref and get an opponent sent off; and we have fans who seem all too willing to make the referee a scapegoat for the underperformance of their team.

This concerns all fans: in 2007, New-Zealand made Wayne Barnes a public hate figure; this year we have had virulent criticism of referees after South Africa-Samoa (mainly by those who wished Samoa to cause an upset and knock Wales out), South Africa-Australia (where admitedly Bryce Lawrence had a shocker, however he didn't fail to score more than 9 points despite having 75% of the possession), Wales-France (for a totally correct decision), and of course France-New-Zealand (mostly by people who just couldn't contemplate New-Zealand winning; BTW I'm french and I thought Joubert had a reasonable game). And it now seems to happen every week-end. After every match.

Now I love rugby. Absolutely love it. Tried playing it and was completely hopeless. And took up refereeing, because I wanted to stay involved in the game. Now I'm not much of a referee by any standards (although I'm a better ref than player, which says more for my playing). But I've mostly enjoyed every minute I've spent in the middle. And you know what I really like? It's after the game where you have a shocker (which makes Bryce Lawrence's WC quarter look like a very competent performance), and you're feeling quite down, and you're in the clubhouse after the game, and some huge second row forward comes to offer you a pint, a word of encouragement and advice. Or after the game when you were actually abused (which doesn't happen often at all) and fans and players come up to you and say "well done ref, shouldn't have to put up with that kind of stuff".

This is the ethos of rugby, it is so different from other sports. I once reffed a football match and got called a special 20 minutes in (admitedly I wasn't making a great fist of it). I duly sent the guy off, which surprised everyone. Apparently such language is acceptable in football.

I do however get the feeling that we are losing that kind of ethos. When youngsters go to games and think it is ok to heckle the ref, they take that on board and these youngsters are tomorrow's players. There has these last few years been an upward trend in match-official abuse reported: this leads to referees giving up, as they don't feel it's worth it anymore. And this is a problem, not only because we may lose the potential top refs of tomorrow (that is unlikely, the top refs are probably those with thick enough skins to withstand any kind of abuse), but mainly because fewer refs means fewer games, and rugby as a community game is poorer.

It may seem like a trifling thing, but it genuinely upsets me to come on here after games and see referees roundly criticised, often after they had perfectly reasonable games. It seems sometimes coaches and fans think their team's shortcomings can be blamed on referees. Let's be clear, a referee has never, and probably will never, be the sole reason for a side's defeat.

Am I being too sensitive and making mountains out of molehills? Does anyone else feel the same way?

The phrase "urinating in the wind" springs to mind.

What worries me most is the amount of rubbish the punditry teams speak regarding decisions that were often perfectly correct, and the genuine lack of knowledge regarding laws and their applications displayed by people who in theory really should know them.
The shock revelation that the Warburton red card decision was correct was both hilarious and worrying. The memo had been handed out to the media at the start of the tournament, it had been mentioned in press conferences, and it had been in force some time...Rolland had even carded someone before in the same circumstances. ye t the entire studio was dumfounded and unaware of the law?

I suspect theres an element of presenters being expected to be stupid and tell people what they want to hear sometimes. real analysis is getting pushed off more and more ( Sky leading the way) for cliched talking points. The refs are always a good one.

Too sensitive.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:
I suspect theres an element of presenters being expected to be stupid and tell people what they want to hear sometimes. real analysis is getting pushed off more and more ( Sky leading the way) for cliched talking points. The refs are always a good one.

Well, someone I know once sent an email to Sky complaining about Stuart Barnes's lack of law knowledge: they were told that Barnes's job was not to be informative, but entertaining...

Pete says there is a lack of knowledge by spectators.

I disagree with that, I think in general posters are rather knowledgeable.

The problem is the referee sees one thing team A's poster sees another and team B's posters see another.

At every ruck as an example there are more than one infirngement, it depends whcih one you are looking at.

The other thing is there are too many matches being decided by the referee, not his fault really as the laws are open to many interpretations and the game is too fast.

Mike, nice article, a lot of truth in what you say there.

On the cricket threads you told me you were an umpire so knew the rules better than me. Now you come on here and tell us that you are a rugby ref. On the other thread you say that you have 3 nationalities and represented one of them (you didnt say what sport) at international level... You get around a bit