2012 Super Rugby Referees & TMO variation

[Moses]

SANZAR ANNOUNCES REFEREE TEAM FOR SUPER RUGBY 2012

SANZAR has finalised its referees for Super Rugby 2012 with five new names added to the team.

SANZAR Game Manager: Lyndon Bray has confirmed that Angus Gardner and Andrew Lees (AUS), Mike Fraser (NZ) and Lourens van der Merwe and Stuart Berry (SA) have been selected into the team for the first time.

The newcomers will join a strong line-up of experienced referees on the respective SANZAR Merit and Reserve panels.

“We plan to give our Merit Panel referees around 80% of the games in Super Rugby, next year, with the Reserve Panel picking up the balance. Our aim is for the best referees to be refereeing the most rugby. The Reserve Panel will operate in a similar way to a rugby team’s reserve bench,” explained Bray.

“It is inevitable that we need reserve referees performing in the middle because, like players, referees can suffer from injuries and loss of form. In addition, it is vital that we continue to develop and grow our talent for the future, which cannot be achieved overnight.”

“The five new referees will gain valuable Super Rugby experience in 2012 and will join three other referees on our Reserve panel. This will help us maintain the growth of our team, with up to five referees potentially leaving the team by the end of next year.”

Four referees from 2011 will not be involved in the 2012 tournament - Stuart Dickinson has retired, whilst Vinny Munro, Pro Legoete and Nathan Pearce were not selected for 2012.

“Stuart had a very celebrated career in the top flight for many years and he will be sorely missed by our team.

“Knowing that we are likely to lose some more referees from our team next year, it was important to balance the new guys selected for 2012 with some maturity and experience. We believe we have a strong team of referees for Super Rugby 2012 Super Rugby and some new competition will be healthy within our team,” Bray said.

The full SANZAR Referee Team is:

Merit Panel:

Keith Brown (NZ), Marius Jonker (SA), Craig Joubert (SA), Jonathan Kaplan (SA), Bryce Lawrence (NZ), Mark Lawrence (SA), Jaco Peyper (SA), Chris Pollock (NZ), Steve Walsh (AUS) & Garratt Williamson (NZ).

Reserve Panel:

Stuart Berry (SA), Mike Fraser (NZ), Angus Gardner (AUS), Glen Jackson (NZ), Andrew Lees, (AUS) Ian Smith (AUS), Lourens van der Merwe (SA) & Jonathon White (NZ).

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[light]

Any reason why Australia only has one referee on the merit panel, are we really that bad at interpreting the rules and making decisions?

 

[Lee Grant]

Not good enough - but I'll back Gardner and Smith to be there in a year or two - also Berry from the RSA; I like him.

Not sure about the elevation of Williamson but maybe others like him.

 

[Lee Grant]

PS - not to the point of this thread but I was watching the Leicester v London Irish match the other day and Leicester scored a try but the player had knocked it on before the goal line. Neither the touchie nor the ref saw it - and fair enough -they are not looking at the same angle as the cameras. Ref Pearson asked the TMO something and I forget if it was the "any reason" or "try, no try" question but it didn't matter, the TMO could only judge these questions after the ball crossed the goal line. He played a straight bat: try, Leicester.

Nick Mullins, the excellent commentator, said that in Super Rugby next year referees will be able to ask the TMO about incidents before the goal line as they can do in France. Then the "any reason" or "try, no try" questions can relate to matters before the goal line. Leicester would not have got the try in that case.

The theoretical objection to it would be that it would waste too much time. In practice it doesn't. You can watch a lot of Top14 games and not realise that France has this TMO dispensation.

PS - I think I will change the name of this thread to cover this matter.

 

[yourmatesam]

What did Vinny Munro do to get shafted from the panel? Or what didn't he do? I liked the way he reffed and thought that he was an up and comer?

 

[Bruwheresmycar]

Pretty good group. SA rightfully have the majority of refs.

I think one of the main reasons Australia only has 2 refs on there is the lack of domestic comps we have. NZ and SA refs have professional rugby to referee all year round. Our refs have to go oversea's in order to get that.

Domestic comps like the (old) ARC are probably more important to the referees than the players (in terms of development).

 

[DPK]

Good news about Angus Gardner. He's from the Wayne Barnes school of refereeing: that is, referee acts as a facilitator of the game within the rules rather than a Keystone Kop catching players red handed. Good communicator too.

 

[Lindommer]

What did Vinny Munro do to get shafted from the panel? Or what didn't he do? I liked the way he reffed and thought that he was an up and comer?

Was thinking the same thing myself, yms, before I go to your post. And very disappointed His Ancientness LG didn't comment on Munro's demotion as I know he rates Vinny. But an "up and comer"? Vinny's nearly as old as me. Well, he looks it.

 

[whatty]

Wonder how many trips Bryce Lawrence (NZ) will get to SA. Yes I am over it he is still crap though

I see he was nominated at the NZ Rugby awards, shows how low the standard of refing in NZ is at the moment.

 

[Hawko]

What did Vinny Munro do to get shafted from the panel? Or what didn't he do? I liked the way he reffed and thought that he was an up and comer?

Agree is not enough! He was way better than the four NZ refs selected, he referees unobtrusively and with good humour, which tends to pacify some of the agro rather than stirring it up (I'm looking at you Kaplan). He doesn't make many mistakes; compared to Lawrence who got the Super final its chalk and cheese. We complain about the refereeing but in my opinion the referee adjudication panel has to bear a huge responsibility for the poor quality of the refereeing. What's a ref to do when he gets a bad report and B. Lawrence gets a good one - it messes with their head for sure!

Ian Smith gets a gig despite his home town reffing performances; he'll have to do way better than he did in the Reds game in Brisbane last year before I'll be convinced he's worth a place.

That inconsistency extends across the international/super divide. M. Lawrence (the good one) is out of the World Cup but still in the Super comp. Munro made assistant ref in the WC in front of a lot of the Super refs chosen this year, but gets written off for Super rugby.

 

[Lee Grant]

Was thinking the same thing myself, yms, before I go to your post. And very disappointed His Ancientness LG didn't comment on Munro's demotion as I know he rates Vinny. But an "up and comer"? Vinny's nearly as old as me. Well, he looks it.

Steady on mate - the last time I saw you run the line with your flag the words "spring" and "chicken" did not come to mind.

Vinnie was up against it coming into top level refereeing at a relatively mature age in the NPC. He did OK though.

 

[Eyes and Ears]

What did Vinny Munro do to get shafted from the panel? Or what didn't he do? I liked the way he reffed and thought that he was an up and comer?

He committed a major error in 2011 - he yellow carded Richie McCaw - that's a CLM.

On the serious side, his age would have counted against him and the fact that he is not going to become a Test referee. There is also a major cleanout coming if you read between the lines on the article (I believe it is the last season for Kaplan, Lawrence, Lawrence and Jonker) as they build towards RWC 2015 - Vinny is not part of this plan. On the technical side, Vinny was often criticised for his inconsistency when he was too lenient for most of the game and then found random penalties towards the end of the game.

 

[Eyes and Ears]

That inconsistency extends across the international/super divide. M. Lawrence (the good one) is out of the World Cup but still in the Super comp. Munro made assistant ref in the WC in front of a lot of the Super refs chosen this year, but gets written off for Super rugby.

I don't believe these are good examples of inconsistency. Several of the Super referees didn't make the world cup. The RWC group only had 4 SH referees, so clearly there have to be more than 4 on the Super panel. For the record, Mark Lawrence had the worst game of the 6 referees in Tri-Nations 2010 and this cost him dearly as the Top 10 referees who went to the RWC were basically selected after the Tri-Nations.
Vinny was selected as an AR for his AR ability not his refereeing ability. He is viewed as a better AR than some of the Super rugby referees.

 

[Toby Lerone]

PS - not to the point of this thread but I was watching the Leicester v London Irish match the other day and Leicester scored a try but the player had knocked it on before the goal line. Neither the touchie nor the ref saw it - and fair enough -they are not looking at the same angle as the cameras. Ref Pearson asked the TMO something and I forget if it was the "any reason" or "try, no try" question but it didn't matter, the TMO could only judge these questions after the ball crossed the goal line. He played a straight bat: try, Leicester.

Nick Mullins, the excellent commentator, said that in Super Rugby next year referees will be able to ask the TMO about incidents before the goal line as they can do in France. Then the "any reason" or "try, no try" questions can relate to matters before the goal line. Leicester would not have got the try in that case.

The theoretical objection to it would be that it would waste too much time. In practice it doesn't. You can watch a lot of Top14 games and not realise that France has this TMO dispensation.

PS - I think I will change the name of this thread to cover this matter.

Did you not get the Sky Sports commentary for this game with Miles Harrison and Stuart Barnes? I know Miles explained how the new TMO regulations would work next year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8igLPPMsBic - There's the incident: the Assistant Referee comes in and confirms there is no knock-on anyway, it went forward off an Irish knee. Coupled with the fact that Stuart Barnes felt it clearly went forward, I'm convinced they got it right, as Barnes is always wrong.

Not really surprised that some of the guys have gone from the panel - Nathan Pearce and Pro Legoete haven't really excelled at Super Rugby level, and to keep your place you need to have good games all of the time. Vinny's age counts against him - generally if you are not refereeing test rugby by the age of 40, the IRB are not interested in making you a test ref. I wonder if he would consider becoming a specialist AR as there is a demand for them (Stuart Terheege, Cobus Wessels are good examples of this) and potentially going back to being a part-time official, taking his job as a policeman back.

Glen Jackson is also a welcome member of the reserve panel, only gave up professional rugby in June 2010, and it's remarkable that he's already refereed a couple of Super Rugby games.

 

[Brumby Jack]

Bryce is concerned about having to go to South Africa to referee. TS to him I say.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10766361

 

[whatty]

Bryce is concerned about having to go to South Africa to referee. TS to him I say.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10766361

He was on NZ's Radio Sport this morning admitting that he did not have a good game and been told by the ref appointment panel that he would not be doing any six nations games that he put down to his poor performance in that game.

 

[Swat]

I saw this big hit the other day, nice one from Gurthro but what caught my eye was that the TMO was being used for possible high tackles (dangerous play?). It was clearly trialled in the Currie Cup, how did it go? anyone with a bit of knowledge on this want to fill me in. It seems to work quite well in this instance [video=youtube;Q-zC80s5tzg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-zC80s5tzg[/video]

 

[Schadenfreude]

Well - we don't want him here!

I'll have to watch the game again - but I'm still sure he was just as bad at policing the Saffas.

He also says he had good performances in the pool games. Sorry Bruce - I call BS.

 

[Jnor]

What a hit!