I have seen the future and it is rugby robots. Bionic players remote-controlled by coaches who have built them from the latest components factories can offer.
Half human, half machine, their souls replaced by chips, their feelings and reactions swapped for the beep of computers calculating winning strategies.
Referees will fare no better, going from mistake-ridden humans to RoboCop enforcers who think 20 seconds to comply is far too slow.
In this world there are no mistakes, there are no reasons to complain about luck, the bounce of the ball, or the bizarre unfairness of a sport that operates like a high-speed roulette wheel of big hits and sprint finishes.
Sounds outlandish, but for a number of critics this is the road that we are racing down and the starting gun was fired by the latest set of rugby’s rule changes. The biggest worry is now over the use of the Television Match Official and accompanying technology.
It is a brilliant concept in itself and rugby would be adopting football’s Canute stance if it were to ignore the advances that have been made in helping referees do their job. Rugby league got there way before union and after years of practice, plus simple procedures and tight definitions of when it can and cannot be used, it has enhanced the game.
Rugby union is right to try to emulate this success and I am a fan of technology. How can you not be? The only problem we have is that no system is foolproof, no technology 100 per cent right, and because of this the changes themselves throw up almost as many questions as they manage to answer.
Look at the first weekend of the Premiership, which was as good as I can remember. The new TMO rules worked well in a number of cases, not least in the detection of foul play.
In the Saracens against London Irish match at Twickenham, Chris Ashton’s shoulder charge on Steve Shingler was reckless, and when reviewed resulted in a yellow card. Excellent teamwork between the referee on the field and his partner in the TV truck. The tackle by Ofisa Treviranus, of London Irish, on Charlie Hodgson looked awful at first sight and the snap decision could easily have been a red card. The review showed it for what it was – reckless but not deliberately decapitating. Yellow card awarded and again excellent work.
Another plus was the ability to check the position of a try scorer when the ball was kicked. In front of the kicker or not? Offside or not?
Nick Evans’s kick pass to Mike Brown on Saturday was checked by the officials. The player was onside. Great review, great try.
So far so good, and on this evidence, there is a lot to be said for the changes. But, look more closely and some issues are appearing.
How far back should you go?
This is the first point of clarity that is needed, especially when checking for a forward pass or knock-on in the build up to a try.
The new guidelines say the referee can go back to the start of the passage of play. That is fine when passages of play are reasonably short as they were over this first weekend. But what do you do when they become 40 phases or more?
It is not impossible: take the Heineken Cup match between Munster and Northampton at Thomond Park last year. There were more than 40 phases before Ronan O’Gara dropped a goal. There was no try, so there could be no referral, but there was a game-winning score after some four minutes of play. There was also a knock on after the first seven phases.
This needs to be clarified, not least the question of why you only refer a try and not any score that wins a match. Why should a dropped goal, or a penalty decision be any different? Until this is made clearer, I think any referral should be limited to the last phase and not the last restart. When you start going that far back, there will be too much to look at, too many possible incidents to take into consideration. It will slow the game down and add layers of complication.
How to define a forward pass
This is more complex. In keeping with my science-fiction theme, there is a heavy slice of physics at the heart of what is the biggest flaw in the system.
As a back my job was to push the boundaries. Ideally, I would be moving forward at pace, throwing the ball into space on a flat trajectory ahead of a team-mate who was also accelerating.
With all of this happening smoothly the ball would look like it was moving backwards, even though it was often actually travelling forwards, past the point from where I passed it. The movement of both players allowed this illusion of a backward pass to happen. What stopped it from looking correct was if I was tackled, or if anything caused a break in my momentum. As soon as I, the passer, was slowed, the pass looked forward. Last Saturday, the forward pass was a hot topic.
Referees have always had a way of trying to work – they look at the passer’s hands. Are they pointing backwards or forwards? It should be simple, only it is not, especially when you have to start considering movement, momentum, and intentions attempts to stay behind the ball as well.
Forward thinking? Key decisions from last weekend
I watched a lot of the TMO decisions back with Dewi Morris. We had the same access to the footage as the officials and we disagreed with each other and the TMO on a number of occasions.
1 Tom Varndell, of Wasps, scores what he thought was a bonu-point try on half-time against Harlequins. The referee was on the spot and gave nothing. It was the touch judge who referred it to the referee, who then passed it on to the TMO, who disallowed it, ruling that the pass between Nicky Robinson and Billy Vunipola, which took place well before the last passage, was forward. In my opinion the try was incorrectly ruled out.
2 Tim Payne, again of Wasps, scores a try in the second half. There was some quick interplay between Payne and Wentzel in the lead up, and the referee asked a pass to be reviewed. I believe he checked the wrong one. The Wentzel to Payne pass, the final one was fine. It was the one before that which was a problem. Try should have been ruled out and was down to poor communication between referee and TMO.
3 Bradley Barritt scores for Saracens against London Irish. In the build up, Joel Tomkins was put under pressure by Topsy Ojo, the London Irish defender. Ojo decided to blitz and shut his space down, knowing that the only way for the ball to move would be forward as Chris Wyles was clearly alongside Tomkins. The pass was forward but Saracens played on. Barritt got his try and Ojo’s good defence is negated. There was no referral from match officials.
4 Geoff Parling scores for Leicester v London Welsh. The Tigers try to come out of the hard in the second half to make a statement. Power runners, quick clearing out, the ball moves wide and Parling scores despite a forward pass from Anthony Allen when there was a clear movement of his hands going forward. Again, no referral, no checking of the build up.
