“Non, je ne regrette rien,” so sang the adored Parisian songbird Edith Piaf.
When, as planned, Mathieu Raynal hangs up his whistle after the summer internationals, I dare say that he will have a few regrets. It goes with the job. But there will be nothing that bothers him unduly, a typical Gallic shrug of the shoulders will shake off any issues.
Certainly, no fingers can be pointed at him following his performance in Croke Park. I’ve mentioned his laidback demeanour before, and he brought that with him in spades.
His steadiness and composure, from the off, allowed the match to breathe, letting play develop, only intruding when necessary. Sure, there’ll be issues to discuss around the breakdown – aren’t there always? – including a penalty to Leinster at the end which just might have gone the other way.
In the event, having led 15-3 at half-time, it was Leinster who ended up praying for the finish. They will thank the rugby gods that Northampton couldn’t catch a cold in that first half as passes were dropped with breathtaking regularity. The Leinster performance was not good enough, and a similar outing against Toulouse won’t cut much French mustard.
The visitors settled and won the second half 14-5. It was that close. The boys in blue could very easily have lost, in which case, there’d be lots of regrets and the excellent Leo Cullen might well have found himself rewriting the words of Piaf’s anthem.
Where I found the referee to be impressive was at scrum time. Not for him the continuous resets and the endless chatting which too many referees seem anxious to inflict on us. They have the opportunity to talk to the front rows before the match, so there’s no reason whatsoever to repeat it all over again on the pitch.
Raynal had a clear plan of what he would look for when scrums collapsed, and then penalised the infringement.
Did he get each decision right? Probably not, that’s a near impossibility. He also didn’t continuously blame one team, but judged each scrum on its merits. Others, please copy.
A team of Irish officials, led by Andy Brace, headed to southwest France for the second semi-final, Toulouse v Harlequins, and found themselves involved in a cracker.
With Toulouse leading 31-12 at the interval, they could have been forgiven for thinking it was all done and dusted. But it certainly was not over, with decisions still to be made, as Quins eventually found their mojo.
It was a strange coincidence that, as in Croke Park, the visitors won the second half. But then, they did themselves no favours either. Having clawed their way back to within a score, a crass hit on Antoine Dupont by Quins’ Jack Walker earned him a yellow card, which could easily have been a red.
Straight away, Toulouse went fast, wide and hard, crossing quickly for the seven-pointer, which gave them the necessary breathing space.
Then there was Joe Marler’s extraordinarily stupid slap to the head of Tomas Ramos. Marler, for all his scrummaging attributes, still has the propensity to pull things like this out of his bag of tricks. No problem for Brace to rightly reverse the penalty already awarded to Quins. The prop paid the correct (and costly) price for his belligerent behaviour, as did his team.
The Sharks became the first South African team to qualify for a European final with their Challenge Cup victory over Clermont. However, the French side will rue Luke Pearce’s call not to award them a penalty try. The referee hummed and hawed for an absolute age before reaching his decision, which will be hotly debated in every hostelry across the Auvergne.
Pearce mentioned that there was defensive cover after a ball-chasing attacker had been felled by Sharks’ Aphelele Fassi. “Cover” was generous terminology, as there only seemed to be a couple of Sharks players helplessly tracking back.
The other Challenge Cup semi-final saw Gloucester go through against Benetton. While the match saw a typically good display by referee Nika Amashukeli, there was a tackle in the air which he did not deal with well. Nevertheless, his performances throughout the season will definitely have put his hat in the ring for the Champions Cup final.
With Toulouse and Leinster being the finalists, the appointment can only come from one of the other participating Unions. The selectors’ discussions, therefore, are likely to revolve around Amashukeli, Rob Dickson and Luke Pearce, in alphabetical order.
That small choice is a reflection on the current state of refereeing in Wales, Scotland, South Africa and Italy, none of who has a contender good enough, or experienced enough, for this prized appointment.
In the URC the situation gets even trickier. There are European qualification battles to be fought, but referees from England, France or Georgia are not in the mix. The quality below the few top URC referees, and the rest, is very questionable. Sure, they can get through a match unscathed, it’s when the going gets tough that weaknesses surface.
Ulster were the beneficiaries recently, including escaping a penalty try decision when the ball was illegally kicked out of a Cardiff player’s hands as he was in the act of scoring. The argument that it was okay because it wasn’t intentional holds no water. It happened, and that’s enough, decisions cannot be based on what referees thought players intended. If so, we’d be in a very strange place indeed.
