Advice to referees

Sean Edwards continued the recent fad of highlighting potential areas of infringement to the match referee before the game, and with some success. Confusing as it was, it seems Garcia went to the TMO but then seemed to make the decision himself based upon the stadium replay without consultation with the TMO. Well played Sean Edwards, poor refereeing Garcia.
In the light of this success, I do hope Catt or Farrell perhaps, points out to the referee ahead of the Ireland/England clash the fact that Schmidt seems to have very successfully integrated in to Irish play that most New Zealand of techniques, the forward pass. If you review Irish tries since Schmidt took over, you'd be alarmed to see how many were created from forward passes.
Surely it's our coaching staffs responsibility to point this out to whichever one of the generally low calibre referees in the game today who will be officiating. Or is it?

Garces is perfectly entitled to make the decision - and he discussed it with the TMO which is right. Right call made in the right way.

TMO called his attention to the possible obstruction. Garces agreed to review it. Looked at it on the big screen. said to TMO " looks like obstruction to me do you agree" TMO says " Yes I agree" Garces says "so no try then" "yes"

That is how the tmo system is supposed to work

Ummmm. Going to the TMO and the ref then making the decision is the way it's meant to happen these days isn't it??? It's normal practice.

TJ wrote:Garces is perfectly entitled to make the decision - and he discussed it with the TMO which is right.  Right call made in the right way.

TMO called his attention to the possible obstruction.  Garces agreed to review it.  Looked at it on the big screen.  said to TMO " looks like obstruction to me do you agree"  TMO says " Yes I agree"  Garces says "so no try then"  "yes"

That is how the tmo system is supposed to work

Not sure that is exactly how it went, looked to me that Warburton spoke to Garces who then went to TMO, who then wasn't consulted. But you missed the point of the post, whether it was Garces or the TMO who pointed it out, did they do it because of Edward's comments? 9 times out of ten it wouldn't have been highlighted, so it seems that Edward's ploy work. So, should all teams do this as in my example of forward passing? This is not a post about whether the Attwood decision was good or bad but how we got there.

No - the TMO called the refs attention to it because he saw the offside. How we got there - we have the technology to make a tmo work so we use it. I would hope it would be seen 100% of the time. I think it would be

All coaches draw attention to things they would like the ref to look at as do captains during the game. Nothing wrong with that.

I think that it has long been a ploy from coaches to do this, cant say that Sean Edwards is the first to do it or is revolutionary in this approach. SCW used to do it, Bob Dwyer and Kidney were all masters of this ploy.

The thing is, all teams benefit regularly from forward passes leading to try's, not just the AB's or Ireland. The TMO is for such events and I don't see how it is not working to be honest.

I think the ref consulting with the TMO, is the best thing to happen in a long time.

We have the technology so we should use it...Yes i agree games can be won or lost using the TMO. But eh so be it.

It's been going on for ages - and at all levels all the way down to Old Dunstonians 3rd XV - just that most often it isn't played out in the media.

However the number of times when a skipper has said to me pre-game "last time we played them, they were consistently off-side at every ruck (insert different favourite offence here) but the ref that day just ignored it; you'll watch out for it sir?"... mind games. The standard response is to just nod politely with a smile (or if you're feeling brave crack a joke) and just referee the game as you would have. I suspect this is exactly what international refs do as well.

Note: this is different from a referee analysing patterns of play (and even offences) before the game of his own violation, and using that information to (hopefully) manage the game better.