Best Referees In The World

[WorkingClassRugger]

Round 2 of Super Rugby, and we had another good week of refereeing

• Federico Anselmi made consistently good calls to facilitate a cracking game of rugby that went down to the wire.
• AJ Jacobs let the game flow really well, making good use of advantage. I get why people think a yellow card after a penalty try is double jeopardy, but it is the law of the game that a penalty try must be accompanied by a yellow card (law 8.3).
• Paul Williams and Egon Seconds weren't afraid of controversy in a climate where nobody really knows what to make of cards. They didn't ruin the contest and were pretty fair. Much as we celebrate refs who let a game flow, the rules are also law; if rules are abhorant, change the rules, don't ignore them.

So I've now seen three games with this bloke in charge and I have to say I like the way he goes about a game of Rugby. Yes, at times I've looked at a few of his on field decisions and wondered why he did/didn't pick them up (none of which had an impact on the end result) but what that demonstrates is a ref with the confidence to actually make decisions and is committed to letting the game flow as much as possible while maintaining control. He's been very good thus far.

 

[Set piece magic]

AJ Jacobs from the rebels game was an interesting ref.

The way I'd describe him is has great flow and continuity and the right attitude, good empathy for the game. He seems to treat the law as interpretative rather than the legalistic crap we get from some refs.

At the same time, he's also gaf prone, and I think he made a couple of dud calls, those can be ironed out. Decent ref

 

[Dctarget]

AJ Jacobs from the rebels game was an interesting ref.

The way I'd describe him is has great flow and continuity and the right attitude, good empathy for the game. He seems to treat the law as interpretative rather than the legalistic crap we get from some refs.

At the same time, he's also gaf prone, and I think he made a couple of dud calls, those can be ironed out. Decent ref

Look, I'll be honest, at HT I calling for his head, he should've been kicked out of the comp never to ref a game again. By the end of the game I think he's the best ref in the competition.

So, he's somewhere between those two levels.

 

[RoffsChoice]

He has capacity to be good, and capacity to be awful. Consistency of performance seems to increase over a ref's career, so we won't know which way he's going until he gets there.

I can't actively praise any refs from the last two rounds, because none have been good. I'm not here to criticise them (too many are too harsh on that front as it is), but I'm not going to sing false praises either.