Dragons v Ulster 8/11/15

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Dragons v Ulster Rugby
Sunday 8th November 2015
Rodney Parade
2.30pm Kick Off
TV- BBC NI and S4C

Referee: Dudley Phillips (IRFU, 54th competition game)
Assistant Referees: Sean Brickell, Simon Rees (both WRU)
Citing Commissioner: Aurwel Morgan (WRU)
TMO: Tim Hayes (WRU)

This should be interesting, Ulster have changed their squad up for this one with the European game in France coming up and with a numbe rof players still missing with Injuries.  Combine that with our frankly awful away record this season and things don't look good but still at least we have best and pienaar back.

Newport Gwent Dragons: Carl Meyer; Ashton Hewitt, Adam Hughes, Adam Warren, Nick Scott; Dorian Jones, Sarel Pretorius; Boris Stankovich, Elliot Dee, Shaun Knight; Cory Hill, Rynard Landman (capt); Ed Jackson, Ollie Griffiths, Taulupe Faletau.

Replacements: Rhys Buckley, Phil Price, Brok Harris, Matthew Screech, Lewis Evans, Charlie Davies, Jason Tovey, Ross Wardle.

Ulster: Peter Nelson; Rory Scholes, Darren Cave, Stuart McCloskey, Sam Arnold; Paddy Jackson, Paul Marshall; Kyle McCall, Rob Herring (captain), Wiehahn Herbst; Dan Tuohy, Franco van der Merwe; Robbie Diack, Chris Henry, Stephen Mulholland.

Replacements: Rory Best, Ricky Lutton, Bronson Ross, Lewis Stevenson, Sean Reidy, Ruan Pienaar, Ian Humphreys, Craig Gilroy

The benefits of getting fully professional officials need to be weighed against the negatives. Would guys who are barristers, doctors, dentists and company directors be interested in giving up their day jobs to become lesser paid pro referees? That would take a considerable swathe of guys out of the gme who are doing what they do because they love the game rather than simply doing a job.

To push the red herring of neutrality further, if a referee can't referee in his home country that also means he will be away every weekend - a big commitment for what are mostly men with young families. What does a professional referee do all week anyway for a sport that is only played at weekends?

A lot is talked about the declining standard of refereeing, but in reality the standards have probably got a lot better. Yet the perception persists that they have got worse because every decision can be forensically examined by fans to the point of finding fault with the least mistake. Would a man who is paid to be a referee not simply realise that even a stellar performance from him could be slated anyway and instead of making him any 'better' he could become disillusioned or alternatively so afraid to make a mistake that the game would take two hours with the number of stoppages.

It was refreshing to hear two real rugby men in Martyn Williams and Colin Charvis on Scrum V pointing out that it is up to the players to 'play the ref', because the referee is the sole judge of the Laws. That respect for the ethos of the game including the officials is being eroded to the limit of tolerance and the danger to the game is not that the referees are amateur, but that there will be fewer and fewer who will want to blow a whistle at all.

Neither professional or neutral referees of themselves will help.

Firstly you cannot assume that the referees want to be full time professionals I suspect most don't.
They have other careers, fitness means the job has a limited shelf life and the nature of the league means a weekend away from the family - a big commitment for many.
I saw someone mention £40,000 on one of these thread - I think that is way below the figure required to get referees to go full time.

As to neutrality as someone else has mentioned happens in the Super 15/18, all the time without any discernible complaint.

The issue is the quality of the refereeing and that is not confined to the Pro12 but is across all senior league.
As I have said before this is the hardest sport to referee and perhaps there is simply too much for the referee to look out for.

The answer may be more responsibility taken by linesmen - re forward passes and scrums for example.
Also lets tidy up/simplify the laws re breakdown and maul for example.
Lets give the referees a better chance to do a very difficult job

The Great Aukster wrote:It was refreshing to hear two real rugby men in Martyn Williams and Colin Charvis on Scrum V pointing out that it is up to the players to 'play the ref', because the referee is the sole judge of the Laws. That respect for the ethos of the game including the officials is being eroded to the limit of tolerance and the danger to the game is not that the referees are amateur, but that there will be fewer and fewer who will want to blow a whistle at all.

This I totally agree with, and I have said it time and again. It should not be up to the referee to insure the spirit of the game, it should be down to the players and the coaches, the referee should be here to ref not to let things go to make the product better, this is the one big issue I have with Nigel Owens.

Also, the point about referees neutrality, why should their national identity come into it ? As long as they are not being paid by the same organisation who are paying the players and the coaches then that will remove a big issue of conflict of interest for me. We need fully pro refs employed by an independent organisation.

Nationality of the referee shouldn't come into it but some of your fellow countrymen often bring it up.

The point about players is a good one - players are increasingly cheating and that is making the referees job a lot harder.

"As long as they are not being paid by the same organisation who are paying the players and the coaches"

Are you saying then, just to remove all doubt and ambiguity that you believe that the Irish referees, because they are payed by the IRFU, look after the Irish sides in the Pro12 and are biased towards them?
Just for clarity.

LordDowlais wrote:

The Great Aukster wrote:It was refreshing to hear two real rugby men in Martyn Williams and Colin Charvis on Scrum V pointing out that it is up to the players to 'play the ref', because the referee is the sole judge of the Laws. That respect for the ethos of the game including the officials is being eroded to the limit of tolerance and the danger to the game is not that the referees are amateur, but that there will be fewer and fewer who will want to blow a whistle at all.

This I totally agree with, and I have said it time and again. It should not be up to the referee to insure the spirit of the game, it should be down to the players and the coaches, the referee should be here to ref not to let things go to make the product better, this is the one big issue I have with Nigel Owens.

Also, the point about referees neutrality, why should their national identity come into it ? As long as they are not being paid by the same organisation who are paying the players and the coaches then that will remove a big issue of conflict of interest for me. We need fully pro refs employed by an independent organisation.

For you its who pays them, a fact that many who complain about the refs are unaware of, and for most its the issue of nationality so it does matter as conflicts of interest go beyond the financial. Also as we seen this weekend, full time refs still have to work for their unions so would still have to pay them and the issue would still remain

Yeah have you lot noticed there are already whole threads all about the officials role in the league.
Feel free to meet up on them and have this discussion.
I'm trying to read about a game I missed and havnt had a chance to watch yet.

Thanks

Pete330v2 wrote:"As long as they are not being paid by the same organisation who are paying the players and the coaches"

Are you saying then, just to remove all doubt and ambiguity that you believe that the Irish referees, because they are payed by the IRFU, look after the Irish sides in the Pro12 and are biased towards them?
Just for clarity.

See, now this kind of proves my point on this forum. I suggest that referees should not be payed by the same organisation as the players, and straight away you type Irish this and Irish that. The Scots have union owned sides as well as union owned refs, it's not JUST the Irish. It's an issue throughout our league.

I AM NOT ATTACKING THE IRISH.

Ok so that's a no then.
Cheers

^ ^ ^
What he said

carpet baboon wrote:Yeah have you lot noticed there are already whole threads all about the officials role in the league.
Feel free to meet up on them and have this discussion.
I'm trying to read about a game I missed and havnt had a chance to watch yet.

Thanks

Thats because, as usual, an thread regarding Ulster has been hijacked by tweedledee and tweedledum.
Do these people hijack Leinster, Munster or Connacht threads?

Pete330v2 wrote:

carpet baboon wrote:Yeah have you lot noticed there are already whole threads all about the officials role in the league.
Feel free to meet up on them and have this discussion.
I'm trying to read about a game I missed and havnt had a chance to watch yet.

Thanks

Thats because, as usual, an thread regarding Ulster has been hijacked by tweedledee and tweedledum.
Do these people hijack Leinster, Munster or Connacht threads?

Pete stop reverting to type!

Quick research shows most pro 12 match threads end up about the ref.

For what it's worth the refs are human. Without them there would be no game.
So shut up about it or become aref yourself.

carpet baboon wrote:Quick research shows most pro 12 match threads end up about the ref.

For what it's worth the refs are human. Without them there would be no game.
So shut up about it or become aref yourself.

This has been pointed out but it appears its unacceptable

It's because for some reason there are a lot more Ulster fans on here than Leinster's or Munster's and the slight complain about the ref gets overblown by you guys.

It's fine saying the ref didn't have a great game. But endless comments going over the same crap as the last game gets boring as flip.
Can we not all be grown ups?

To be fair, Dragons did not lose because of the ref, they lost because they could not score any tries when they had more than enough opportunities to do so. But in saying that, the refereeing in that game left a lot to be talked about, as he we was not up to the standards of a professional leagues needs.

Your right.
But is this the place to talk about the refs standards? Again? And again? And again?

I was happy enough to come on here and talk about the game, I then saw this typed by Pete330v2:-

Are you seriously going to raise that ridiculous, peurile whinge? Why don't you take that over to the thread created by LD and Chunky, they'll pat your back for you and comfort you. wrote:

This is when I felt I needed to say something about the ref. So please take the issue up with your fellow Ulster supporter for taking us down that route.

carpet baboon wrote:It's fine saying the ref didn't have a great game. But endless comments going over the same crap as the last game gets boring as flip.
Can we not all be grown ups?

I only flicked through the game on playback but Phillips seemed to have a better game than his usual standard, the Nelson incident could easily be explained by him being well away from the play as it happened and having Nelson between him and the ball so mightn't have seen the touch

His reffing of the scrum was embarrassing, Im not sure how many warnings he gave out but should have carded one or both of Herbst or Stankovich and its probably no coincidence that the scrum seemed steadier when Lutton came on

I'm taking it up with everyone as we are all to blame. That's my point. We all need to shut up about it.

And one thing I need to point out.
Rugby has laws
One of those laws is that the referee is the sole arbitrator of fact on the pitch.
So he is right regardless of what any of us think.
The players know this
If you can't play to the ref get off the park.

It's all gone very quiet.

It's your fault, cb

Hey If I can get you lot to behave I might become.e apro12 ref

carpet baboon wrote:Hey If I can get you lot to behave I might become.e apro12 ref

This is true, but you could never come back here

True.

The Turks have sent an official request to the Pro 12 chiefs for clarification of some of the ref's decisions in their match against Leinster.

I've heard this isn't uncommon.

This would explain why their fans boo so much during games (even ones they win comfortably).

Scarlets fans don't boo, that's a popular misconception. They're actually doing ghost impressions to scare off the visiting team.

It's very effective, I must admit

carpet baboon wrote:Hey If I can get you lot to behave I might become.e apro12 ref

You can download the form at IRFU.cO'm