Your Ref of the 6 Nations?

Now the 6 Nations is complete, who do you think was the stand out ref of the tournament?

Also, what do you think were the best and worst refereeing calls made during the tournament?

If you could make one recommendation to the IRB about refereeing what would it be?


Best Ref = Nigel Owens
Best call = immediate stop of play after Lee Jones injury
Worst = No Hogg try against Wales (apology was appreciated though).
IRB recommendation = Better clarity on what TMO can and cannot judge.

Agree with all above,

My Recomendation would be for the touch judge to assist the Referee better at Scrum time, or have a specific Referee for Scrum management. Have a ref come onto the pitch for every scrum to referee the side the main referee cannot.

Or better yet change the Scrummaging parameters to allow the contest to be easier to ref and safer for the players

I agree with the OP except I thought the worst call was Bradley Davies yellow card. A disgraceful call by the referee.

Having a specific scrum ref would never work. You'd either get a guy who simply knows too much and pings every scrum or else you'd just simply get the same level of inconsistency.

The laws are the issue and I dont think a fat fella watching the scrum will do any better under the current ones.

I thought the consistency between referees at breakdown was a bigger talking point than scrums though.

Thought Pollock, Joubert and Owens were all excellent. Picked Pollock cos it was his first go at 6n(bless).

red_stag wrote:I agree with the OP except I thought the worst call was Bradley Davies yellow card. A disgraceful call by the referee.

Having a specific scrum ref would never work. You'd either get a guy who simply knows too much and pings every scrum or else you'd just simply get the same level of inconsistency.

The laws are the issue and I dont think a fat fella watching the scrum will do any better under the current ones.

I thought the consistency between referees at breakdown was a bigger talking point than scrums though.

I thought Barnes said he hadn't seen it so went with the assistant's call, and the latter bottled it?

I don't know how you could ever associate the word 'best' in the same sentence as Owens, Barnes, Rolland, Clancy & Walsh.

Unless the sentence was 'What's the best gun to use if............'

Truly dreadful bunch of eejits pretending to be refs.

best ref was Pollock IMO, superb display where's he been all these years? second-best (or possibly equal best) was the ever-excellent Joubert, who continues to show why he's rated the best in the world.

worst call I have to agree with the Assistant (think it was Pearson) who recommended yellow for Bradley Davies. Second would be Walsh forgetting England had a penalty advantage three meters from the Wales tryline when Strettle was adjudged not to have scored in the corner, would have at least given England another attempt to score.

best call is tougher, doesn't seem to stand out in the same way.

recommendation to the IRB: please don't try out the "white card" idea at international level.

I thought the worst call was the yellow card for Sharples for deliberate knock on against France with Alain 'It's all about me' Rolland saying 'You've left me no choice!' This being shortly after he'd given just a penalty for a French player doing the same thing.

The calls to give Ferris and Halfpenny yellows were pretty bad too.

Joubert's performance in Wales vs France was the best I'd seen all tourny.

Thought the NH refs in general had a poor tournament - clownshoes Clancy, fatty Barnes, bottler Person, and oops Poite, with Owens as the exception

For me its between Joubert, Owens and Pollock with Joubert getting the nod. I thought that Jouberts game management was excellent yet again.

Asbo - yes your right. I was talking about Pearson who I am glad you have labelled bottler.

Twas a really close call for me between Owens and Joubert, but just because I though Joubert was excellent in the Wales v France match, I honestly barely noticed him, I opted for him.

Owens has to be the most communicative ref in the buisness though. He leaves players in no doubts as to who is the boss and what his decisions are. I really like him as a ref.

I love the fact that Joubert never wants to be the centre of attention, he just gets on with it.

Joubert edges Owens for me.

Was Pollock the one who reffereed one of the Ireland games (vs Scotland?) - If so, he was very good - on the same weekend that Rolland and Clancy were awful

Wales606, yep Pollock was the ref between Ireland and Scotland. I think that it was also his debut so alot of respect to him for that performance.

I have not been a big fan of Owens but he was very good in this 6N so I voted for him, I like others thought Pollock and Joubert had good games but Rolland and Clancy are consistently bad and should not ref international games.