Lee Grant
John Eales (66)
What does everybody think about the law crackdown?
Most of us were hoping that the advertised crackdown on infringements and forcing the players to keep to the laws as written would lessen the number of times the ball was killed or slowed down.
To me it worked brilliantly. Dickinson is not my favourite referee but he is pretty fearless. He set the bar on the crackdown on infringements in the opening game and right from the kick-off – releasing the tackled player, the tackler getting to feet before he did anything etc, Dickinson even got the offside pillars to retreat behind last feet a few times.
There were a few frowns from the players, as if to say: “The coach warned us the ref would be stricter, but having to keep to every tackle/ruck law is ridiculous,” but the Canes players reacted better and won the game, It was a pity that the Blues guys kept being boneheads and giving up penalties as they had the backs to take advantage of the better ball quality.
I expect that most of the 7 referees made players conform better to the laws than they ever had before but some gave too much benefit to attackers by letting them go off feet too much and too often. But the sky didn't fall and after the game most players who commented enjoyed it. The best praise of the crackdown came from Victor Matfield.
I thought the worst referee on the crackdown was the new Kiwi ref who had the Sharks v Chiefs game. He was very inconsistent IMO. I always go for the Chiefs except when they play an Oz team and I'm glad they won, but in that last ruck Messam had his hand on the ball right in front of the camera and the ref. But I realise that any ref can miss one thing; so it was the confused message he was sending to the players in the crackdown during the game that was the worst thing in my eyes.
The Bulls, surprsingly, seemed the best to take avantage of better ball on the weekend and eventually, the Crusaders. The Reds were the best of the Oz teams and the Tahs, the worst.
As Chief indicated in another thread: there were a lot of PKs and FKs, but not enough yellow cards. There should be some rough proportion between the number of frequent infringements and the number of cards issued, at least over 7 games. Let's hope that Bray gives the refs a rocket for it.
Let's hope also that the refs don't wimp out after a week or two and go back to their old ways. They've done it before with crackdowns.
Most of us were hoping that the advertised crackdown on infringements and forcing the players to keep to the laws as written would lessen the number of times the ball was killed or slowed down.
To me it worked brilliantly. Dickinson is not my favourite referee but he is pretty fearless. He set the bar on the crackdown on infringements in the opening game and right from the kick-off – releasing the tackled player, the tackler getting to feet before he did anything etc, Dickinson even got the offside pillars to retreat behind last feet a few times.
There were a few frowns from the players, as if to say: “The coach warned us the ref would be stricter, but having to keep to every tackle/ruck law is ridiculous,” but the Canes players reacted better and won the game, It was a pity that the Blues guys kept being boneheads and giving up penalties as they had the backs to take advantage of the better ball quality.
I expect that most of the 7 referees made players conform better to the laws than they ever had before but some gave too much benefit to attackers by letting them go off feet too much and too often. But the sky didn't fall and after the game most players who commented enjoyed it. The best praise of the crackdown came from Victor Matfield.
I thought the worst referee on the crackdown was the new Kiwi ref who had the Sharks v Chiefs game. He was very inconsistent IMO. I always go for the Chiefs except when they play an Oz team and I'm glad they won, but in that last ruck Messam had his hand on the ball right in front of the camera and the ref. But I realise that any ref can miss one thing; so it was the confused message he was sending to the players in the crackdown during the game that was the worst thing in my eyes.
The Bulls, surprsingly, seemed the best to take avantage of better ball on the weekend and eventually, the Crusaders. The Reds were the best of the Oz teams and the Tahs, the worst.
As Chief indicated in another thread: there were a lot of PKs and FKs, but not enough yellow cards. There should be some rough proportion between the number of frequent infringements and the number of cards issued, at least over 7 games. Let's hope that Bray gives the refs a rocket for it.
Let's hope also that the refs don't wimp out after a week or two and go back to their old ways. They've done it before with crackdowns.
