“Definite progress, but still room to improve.”
I imagine that’s what a teacher would write in marking Luke Pearce’s homework, following his handling of Leinster versus Clermont. Having criticised him last week for overzealous, needless waffle, it’s only fair to now say that he was a lot better on Saturday.
Pearce seemed to have decided to put a sock in it, and hopefully it’s not a flash in the pan. Maybe, at last, he realises that nobody, but nobody, has bought a ticket to watch or listen to him.
Certainly, for most of the first half, we got accuracy in decisions, explained precisely and concisely. There was, perhaps inevitably, some slippage, including one remarkable query he put to Clermont, “Do you want to test me?” Obviously that was an odd one. So, yes, room for improvement.
I’d hazard an educated guess that Pearce doesn’t give tuppence for my opinion. But it’s encouraging that someone, who he does listen to, must have had a word in his ear. If he studies both matches he cannot fail to see that his performance is much better when he is not the centre of attention.
As for the match itself, if any referee made as many basic mistakes as Leinster did, he would be delivered to the scrap heap in double-quick time.
Is the Champions Cup on its last legs?
“Johnny Who?” read the short text pinged on my phone, as we watched Sam Prendergast’s instinctive understanding of space, and his perceptive distribution. At times he gets the ball away quickly, next he’ll tease the defence with a little feint, delaying his pass slightly, creating just enough space for a line-break. Jordie Barrett’s vital try being one example.
While I can’t recall Prendergast being tackled in possession of the ball, he was certainly tackled when he didn’t have it. He fooled a frustrated Peceli Yato with the cleverest of chip kicks over the Clermont player’s head. Yato, having felled the outhalf late and dangerously, quickly departed the crime scene hardly bothering to wait for Pearce to produce the yellow card.
Fortunately Prendergast was not hurt, but the incident was a reminder that players need the protection of match officials. It is not too cynical to suggest that he will be targeted. Antoine Dupont has also spoken about being on the receiving end of illegal off-the-ball treatment.
By “protection,” I mean that dangerous yellow carded actions must get more than just a nonchalant wave of the card from the referee. Strong words of caution are necessary for perpetrator and captain, rather than smiles and understanding. Showing real disapproval, no tolerance, is an undoubted deterrent. Instead, referees strive to be everybody’s pal; it’s a serious error, doesn’t work anyway, and was never in the job spec.
Munster, the men who used to be in red, nowadays seem to prefer jerseys of the insipid variety. Whoever signed off on such drab coloured kit needs to have a complete rethink.
Against 14 men for 30 minutes, thanks to three yellow cards for Castres from Christophe Ridley, Munster were poor. The referee was assiduous in awarding penalties, the teams sharing as equally as possible all 33 of them. Sure, some can be argued, but that works both ways.
However, Ridley could carefully consider if he needed to whistle all of them – there are moments when the game can usefully be allowed to breathe. But, with nearly one penalty per minute of ball-in-play time, there were a heck of a lot of stoppages at the Stade Pierre-Fabre.
In Ravenhill, Ulster could not maintain their excellent first-half performance, and shipped 26 points in the second period, without notching any score themselves. Gianluca Gnecchi travelled from Italy to referee his first Champions Cup match, and we got something of a mixed bag. In common with many referees, he positioned himself far too close to the breakdown. It was predictable that, sooner or later, he’d get in trouble, which he did, having to halt the match when he got tangled up in play.
However, Gnecchi and his TMO did well to unravel a complicated situation after Ulster collapsed a maul. They came up with the correct decision of a penalty try to Bordeaux-Begles, and a yellow card for David McCann. Both teams were guilty of some unsanctioned sealing-off and side entry. The referee’s performance review will study closely his accuracy at the breakdown.
There was some understandable frustration for Ulster when Gnecchi stopped play close to the visitor’s goalline. It was to correctly award a yellow card, but it also meant that he stopped a quickly taken tap by Ulster, which may well have led to a try. The converse, of course, is if he didn’t stop play, the player to be yellow carded, in accordance with Murphy’s Law, would make a try-saving tackle.
Briefly, to Stade Français v Saracens. First, SF’s Sekou Macalou tripped opposing scrumhalf Ivan Van Zyl, then dived on him, delivering a horrible swinging arm to the head. Hollie Davidson didn’t take long to hand out the red card, it was an easy call. And it brings focus again on the 20-minute red card. If player actions at this level of danger allow for a replacement, then rugby will be letting itself down. Utterly.
