The way to enhace your chances during ruck time and scrums.

It is really simple, it is all a lottery, you may as well chance your arm. the reality is it doesn't matter whether you are right or wrong, it is up to the referee to decide or interpret whatever he deems is right or wrong.

There is a saying in afrikaans "Wie nie waag nie, wen nie" I guess the closest one in English is, "he who hesitates is lost". Hence you improve your chances by playing the law any way you deem fit. If you are on the wrong, but the referee doesn't pinge you, you get away with it and score points, if he catches you, well then it doesn't matter because next time you have the ball, you just try your odds again.

By hesitating on what is right or wrong, all you are doing is reduce your odds on either getting quick ball or losing possession, so either way you might as well just go for gold. Let the lotto up to the referee.

The same applies to the scrum, do what you want, your chances are 50/50 you will get away with it.

So my opinion is simple, forget about whether you are trying to play within the law, becuase even if you are, you'll still get pinged.

Well,well a Bok follower espousing an All BlackPhilosophy,in plain English"Play the Referee".It`s called using your brains folks,which is why Ritchie Mc Caw is still worlds number one 7.NOT because he cheats[at least no more than any other 7] but because he adjusts his game to suit the Ref.

You aren't getting my point Alan.

It isn't adjusting your game to suit the referee. It is playing the game ignoring the result of referee interpretation. It is about not hesitating,just going gung ho, the referee interpretations cannot be outguessed, hence you might as well just do what you think is right, because essentially other teams are doing legal or illegal things with the attitude as if they are in the right, and hence getting the odds to their favour.

We must do the same, play hang on, hands in, go down, throw your hands in the air, whatever, but do it as if you are in the right. Referees tend to believe that

That's what I've always seen as 'playing the referee' as opposed to 'playing to the referee'. The second simply means adjusting to the ref's interpretation the first is actively working on the ref's perception of what is going on and is a staple part of backrow play i.e. tell the ref you're rolling away and appear to make an effort whilst remaining completely in the way, show him your hands are off the ball by holding one in the air while the other 'trapped' hand interferes etc. etc. What's actually happening isn't important it's what the ref thinks is happening that matters so convince him you're doing everything he wants you to whilst doing the opposite.

It isn't about adjusting your own game to suit the referee's interpretations though. The problem is the referee adjusts his interpretations throughout a game. Sometimes a team will do the exact same thing as another, one will get away with it, and one will be penalised. This is what the big problem is right now IMO. How can you adjust your game to suit something so inconsistent and random?

Biltong .you may be correct in saying "try it on,for want of better words,be gung ho".BUT you may just get up his nose,do that and he will ping you out of the game.Allain Rolland is an ex SH,so you will get no change at Scrum time.
Stu Dickenson ,get on his wrong side you may as well pack up and go homeyou`ve lost.The laws are there as i have pointed out in another thread they are just a matter of interpratation.
As you say be pro active if you like,BUT it may just earn you a reputation for
cheating and that will go against you long term.[as I think it maybe now]

Rory, on your point about a referee changing his interpretation during a game this isn't the case.

Howver the truth is he sees some things and doesnt see others.

People see 6 replays of an incident and assume the ref has seen this and made an informed decision which is inconsistent.

20 years ago we thought nothing of this as we didnt have these camera angles.

Just out of interests sake. which game were you watching?

red_stag wrote:Rory, on your point about a referee changing his interpretation during a game this isn't the case.

Howver the truth is he sees some things and doesnt see others.

People see 6 replays of an incident and assume the ref has seen this and made an informed decision which is inconsistent.

20 years ago we thought nothing of this as we didnt have these camera angles.

I agree entirely with you in respect to the impossibility of the ref's job. I said in another post (to SF) that you'd need individually focused compound eyes to have a hope to see everything.

At the elite levels they have multi-camera views to expose (with replays and slo-mo) obvious reffing failures. It's all too easy to have 20-20 hindsight. And even then the hindsight can be occluded and affected by personal interest/prejudice.

red_stag wrote:Rory, on your point about a referee changing his interpretation during a game this isn't the case.

Howver the truth is he sees some things and doesnt see others.

People see 6 replays of an incident and assume the ref has seen this and made an informed decision which is inconsistent.

20 years ago we thought nothing of this as we didnt have these camera angles.

It is obviously not always the case, but I have seen this happen numerous times. One team getting away with murder at the breakdown, and if the referee does finally penalise them they get a small slap on the wrist. Though the other team gets a yellow. This kind of thing is not uncommon. It isn't that the referee simply does not see, I can live with that and understand that, even if it is annoying. If a team infringes, and the referee catches them, he seems more inclined to check what they are doing, and if they put one foot wrong they get out the whistle. Meanwhile, the other team can flop all over the place, but the referee lets it continue. That is a bit beyond simply not seeing some things.

I'm not convinced it's as bad as it has been in the past, in super rugby at least. I know that they have introduced modern management techniques to try an improve refereeing.

Essentially they are using a form of adaptive management. That is to say SANZAR is working with unions, coaches and referees to identify and set targets to improve refereeing, then analyising the games. Following this they provide feedback to refs and teams. They are also publishing some of the results. They are also working with teams at a techical level to try and improve consistency with the laws. For instance, preseason, they have been working with the scrum coaches of all teams, worked with teams to ensure players track behind the ruck and stay on their feet.

I'm not going to pretend it's perfect, but I think it's a step in the right direction. I think the number of completed scrums has jumped from 45% to 60%, the number of missed offsides has dropped, and there is less lazy running. There has also been a move to ensure players stay on their feet.

The problem is that rugby is probably the hardest professional sport in the world to referee (it's continous, fast paced, instense, subjective and complicated). There will no doubt continue to be poor refereeing performances, but for the first time in a while I think we may be moving in the right direction (I'm with Jake White on this one).

However the truth is he sees some things and doesnt see others.

That is exactly the problem. The referee sees what he is looking for. That is why you may as well play without hesitation and full conviction that what you are doing is right. You cannot outguess what the referree has seen and thus know whter he is going to pinge you.

A lot in life is about perception, and in the case of a referee, his perception is the one that counts. So why try to play to him, you'll still get it wrong in his eyes even when you think you are absolutely on the right side of the law. so play with the assumption that you are right, show that confident manner in your body language, show no hesitation.

There after it is a lottery.

I agree with you Bek.

Stag, that is why rugby is losing it's flavour with me. It is more about the lottery than the physical dominance and the superiority of athletes.

Just re read the original post. I'm wondering whether this would be better in the general rugby forum. If so forget most of my earlier post. If not, and we are talking international games, I agree with you in general. Although I think there's a trend towards standardisation of refereeing in the longer term. There is a need to play to the referee, at a professional level, because they have trends to their games. The have an agenda that influnces their refereeing, set by the referees panal (rugby organisation), and a product of their experience (local interpretation etc). I understand most teams analyse referees because of this, and individual players review video of how refs react in certain circumstances (e.g. McCaw, Pocock, etc). The fact that SANZAR works with teams on techique during the season, illustrates the issue. So it's a matter of balance. What issue are the refs being vigilant on this year, what fetishes has this ref got, and where can I push the limits?

Biltong
Would you not agree that players/coaches have to keep abreast of the areas that referees are concentrating their focus,an example being in six weeks of Surper xv the refs have relaxed their attention to the "sealing off" since the opening week at the breakdown.to fail to identify these trends will more than likely put you in a lottery heavily weighted with risk.

The have an agenda that influnces their refereeing, set by the referees panal (rugby organisation), and a product of their experience (local interpretation etc). I understand most teams analyse referees because of this, and individual players review video of how refs react in certain circumstances (e.g. McCaw, Pocock, etc). The fact that SANZAR works with teams on techique during the season, illustrates the issue. So it's a matter of balance

I am afraid, that is mostly lip service and old cliches. It means nothing to the team on the field in my opinion, it changes from game to game.

aucklandlaurie wrote: Biltong
Would you not agree that players/coaches have to keep abreast of the areas that referees are concentrating their focus,an example being in six weeks of Surper xv the refs have relaxed their attention to the "sealing off" since the opening week at the breakdown.to fail to identify these trends will more than likely put you in a lottery heavily weighted with risk.

Laurie, yes, I would expect that. John Plumtree is a New Zealander, a guy I have the utmost respect for. And I would expect him to understand this and interpret it and forward that communication through to his team.

I get back to what I said a week or so ago. Ruck the toffee out of every ruck. Simply train your players to ruck and stay on their feet, because any other way you are leaving it open to a lottery.

Biltong

Presuming you are referring to last nights game,I would strongly suspect that Plumtree would have sent some very strong messages out to the team,and I also suspect that not only he,but also the Captain was dissappointed with the lack of readjustment by the pack.

Laurie you and many others have suggested in the past that South african teams play dum rugby. I guess if everyone says it, then it must be true.

But then I have to count myself in that category as well, because I sure as hell don't understand rucks.

Biltong
Its far too much of a generalisation to say that South African teams play dumb rugby,its only a couple of players in a forward pack,and the cost those few players put on the rest of team is soul destroying.

But if you want to see a real dumb team,then take a look at the Blues.

Well I am giving up trying to understand rucks now. I obviously don't see or interpret them in the right manner.

Ive never understood them biltong so I'm with you there.

Im just of the opinion that its not necessarily my job to understand them.
These days its my job to enjoy the game as a spectator and ex player. To comment on the players amd teams that i enjoy watching.
I'm not a ref nor have i ever reffed.

But i would like to assume that refs know their stuff so I deliberately dont get bogged down in over analysing the actions of referees. Because it gets me nowhere.

My observation is the rules allow for too wide a scope for interpretation and result in either ineptness- where refs simply dont pull anything up, or over indulge in one area and penalise anything that moves.

For this reason I find it hard to blame refs, just sympathize with them when they get abused for their actions.

We kiwis know for a fact that barnes represents the epitomy of all evil since time immemorial but...we dont really.

Perhaps with the match stats each penalty given should be detailed in terms of what, where, why, how it was awarded. This could help teams analyse their failings where appropriate but more importantly over time it would provide analysis of referees, their tendencies, trends etc.

From here room for improvement, learnings, inconsistencies etc would evolve across all refs/ teams etc.

Boltongbek. I'm not going to disagree with you re: rucks. What I am saying is that they are now trying to improve the system in a professional way. That's a huge step forward. I think the powers that be would agree as well. Here's the comments from Lyndon Bray (in the NZ herald I think):

"The biggest bugbear for the game was the tackle area. Coaches felt if they got 70 per cent of recycled possession within three seconds of a tackle, they had attack chances.

However, if referees over-managed players at the breakdown, defences were able to regroup and that nullified attacking chances.

Sanzar's greatest focus early in this year's series was to penalise players who sealed off possession because that negated chances for opposition players on their feet contesting the breakdown.

"That's why we attacked the sealing-off issue and players who dive in to protect their ball.

"Heinrich Brussow, Richie McCaw and David Pocock are so good because they manage to circumnavigate those areas," Bray said.

"We were tough and technical early with this area but we've eased a shade and what we have now is a change from 20 penalties each weekend to about 15.

"It's the toughest area to referee, getting that picture right all the time is nigh impossible."

It was, by definition, a dynamic phase. Referees had to judge the actions and intentions of a ball carrier, the tackler, the arriving player, whether it was a ruck, if players had come through the gate - all that in a couple of seconds."

The point is they are working with the coaches, teams and specialists to try and improve consistancy. To be fair, it's always been an issue with referees in international rugby. It was in the first game. My memory is it was much worse in the past.

I agree, Biltong, I don't always understand why somethings are penalised in some instances and not in others, but I also feel sympathy for the referees in that I think the rules for the breakdown are too complicated. You could probably find something to penalise at virtually every ruck, but if you did so you'd be accused of breaking the flow of the game, and hence the ref has to make a split second decision on what to penalise. Furthermore there are often occassions where several players from both teams are similataneously engaging in penalisable rucking (ie: the ball carrier's holding onto the ball, the tackler didn't release, someone is off their feet and another didn't enter through the gate) the ref again has to make a split second decision as to who he'll penalise. Hence it does become a bit of a lottery, and influenced, dare I say it, by sub-concious preferences! But let me reiterate, I don't blame the referees for this, I think the over-complicated rules put them in an un-enviable situation come ruck time...

What refs are often looking for at the ruck is impact. Do i need to blow for that, white won that ball quickly anyway. Black came in from the side...did nothing ...wait...ok blacks won the ball, blow. Both teams are off their feet, balls coming out on the side it should, ill ignore that. Keep the game flowing.
SH refs use that thinking a lot at rucks too, balls available at the base? your choice not to use it ...im not going to blow for the collapsed scrum.

I said a few weeks ago the way to negate misinterpretations at ruck time is to ruck drive over the ball.

That is exactlty what the successful teams in the Super XV have been doing a lot of.

biltongbek wrote:I said a few weeks ago the way to negate misinterpretations at ruck time is to ruck drive over the ball.

That is exactlty what the successful teams in the Super XV have been doing a lot of.

I have no great interest in SH rugby below inter-hemisphere internationals, but that sounds like a bloody good job.

Apologies at the outset for being pedantic, but isn't "Wie nie waag nie, wen nie" really the SAS motto "Who dares, wins"? Similar to Chindits motto under Orde Wingate "The Boldest Measures
Are The Safest". My grandfather served for a while with the Chindits in Burma and SW China. This was drilled into me from the time I was a lad.

But to the Rugby, I completely agree with your "no hesitation" comment. From my first match I remember being taught to never hesitate, Go in with intensity, drive, and an idea (!), and mostly good things will result. And that's how I coach my lads now. Just keep driving and moving, having come in behind the ruck and things are generally OK.

biltongbek wrote:By hesitating on what is right or wrong, all you are doing is reduce your odds on either getting quick ball or losing possession, so either way you might as well just go for gold. Let the lotto up to the referee.

Its really the only way to play.

Yeah, you're right,
who dares , wins is most accurate.

One of the best ways to enhance your chances during ruck and scrum times is to get the referee is to focus all his attention away from your team and onto the opposition.

One of the best ways to do this is for a couple of your players to go crying to the referee,accusing the opposition of eye gouging (remember to hold your eye though).you may however run the risk of being a target for eye gouging in the future because no one will take you or your teammates seriously again.

To quote Todd Blackadder this morning"it besmirched the Crusaders players reputations and they would possibly now come under greater scrutiny from match officials".

Now now laurie...point is well made.
There may well be some benefit of the doubt around one or two of the incidents though on evidence that seems unlikely.

The other issue if it was false this is hugely unfair on the ref who has the hardest job in sport as it is. Taking advantage of the refs inability to cover that off as well as the current difficulties at breakdown time defies belief that someone would stoop that low.

Be very interesting to see what chilli and co's response is in that if they were prepared to go so far and raise it, they should be defending themselves in the same way they planned for the saders to...or simply...the mud will stick.

Well without going completely off the rails here, SANZAR should send their judiciary committee to the Bulls and investigate the how and why of the allegations.

I disagree with the fact that the Crusaders will be closely or unfairly scrutinised by referees as their reputation is one of a champion team.

The focus is now squarely on the Bulls as they need to answer these false allegations.

The only ones that came out of this looking questionable are Flip v d Merwe and Chiliboy.

taylorman
Sure I may have been somewhat strong on how I have taken up this issue,however there is a reason for that,and that is that these are the two most serious allegations that one player can lay against another in the game of rugby.

There is no way now that Chiliboy or Van der Merve can make any comments about either incident as they will only be met with the question "Then why didnt you assist the citing commissioner? and the answer to that question would be real interesting.

Since the Citing Commission,has found there is no case to answer,surely at least an apology is in order.As to false allegations that is a case for the relevant people concerned.As I have previously stated ANY PLAYER who DELIBERATELY Eye gouges anyone.Should be automatcally BANNED FOR LIFE,blindness is no
joke !!!