What have Paul Williams, Karl Dickson and Ben O’Keeffe got in common?
Well, apart from the fact that the three of them opened the batting for the referee team in this season’s Six Nations, there is something else. They had all been criticised by coaches for their performances the previous week.
These were not rants, but nonetheless all three losing – now, there’s a surprise – coaches (Ronan O’Gara, Alex Sanderson, and Michael Cheika) decided to have a post-match dig. Their words achieve nothing at all, other than encouraging abhorrent posts on social media.
The Aviva saw New Zealander O’Keeffe in charge and he had a very good first half. When Ireland, showing true grit, made their way back into the match he seemed somewhat less on top of things but the match presented a high degree of difficulty. It was a thundering humdinger with no love lost. James Lowe and English fullback Freddie Steward might well have been sent to the cooler following a heated enough set-to on the ground.
England will have questions for the officials, but they’ll know very well that the referee did not contribute to their defeat. Last week this column outlined the scrum issues facing the game. On Saturday we saw it in real life. O’Keeffe halted a promising English attack inside the Ireland 22. It was a marginal forward-pass decision, but the ensuing scrum was the real problem.
The referee was on the far side from the collapse and it seemed the call came from his assistant, James Doleman. The penalty went against England’s Ellis Genge, who looked perplexed, perhaps with good reason. Finlay Bealham’s feet were so far back that it was impossible for him to take any pressure and like a flattened pancake he went to ground.
Can I say, unequivocally, that the penalty should have gone to England? Nope, sorry, I cannot. But a good case can definitely be made, including the written law. It states that “each front-row player must have both their feet on the ground, with their weight firmly on at least one foot”. The officials too will make their case but, just like the rest of us, they can’t be certain. Ignoring the law for so long has transformed the scrum into a morass, a horrible swamp of difficulty. Vital decisions are too often very debatable, or just plain wrong.
And this proved to be a key call. Ireland, courtesy of the penalty, made their way upfield and forced England to remain on the defensive until the visitors restarted the match after Bundee Aki’s try.
Mario Itoje was also perplexed when whistled up for a foul on Jack Conan who didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. Again, it looked like a call from the assistant. It was a huge penalty for what was, if it was anything material at all, a mere finger tip.
No-arms tackles, where the tackler goes low with no attempt to grasp, are extremely dangerous. England threw in a couple of these that weren’t picked up by any of the match officials. One was by Tommy Freeman on Lowe and another by new cap Cadan Murley.
There were howls of outrage when Chandler Cunningham-South rocked Hugo Keenan backwards with a monstrous tackle after the fullback had jumped high to catch the ball. The penalty was correct as Keenan had not yet returned to terra firma, but he was close to landing when the otherwise legal tackle was made. O’Keeffe did not see it as yellow card territory, a fair enough call.
Williams had been first up on Friday evening for France’s demolition of Wales in Paris. It will have been nothing more than a walk on the park for him, a far easier task than he had in La Rochelle’s defeat to Toulon. The referee had some challenges in the scrum – but who hasn’t? It was an area where he might, on reflection, consider that he was somewhat soft, opting for a free kick at an early scrum after two resets. Another reset, accompanied by “you’re both playing games”, didn’t strike me as being particularly meaningful.
Williams did, however, come up with the right answers for a couple of tight touch-down decisions, despite his poor goal-line positioning. Lady Luck was kind.
And then along came Romain Ntamack. An utterly needless, high, dangerous hit to Ben Thomas’s head saw Williams sending him for a bunker review. Correctly upgraded to a red card, it left France wondering how much damage it will do to their championship ambitions. They’ll also be wondering about the suspension, which will surely have to be three or four matches minimum. It will need a very benevolent judicial panel to include the upcoming Six Nations rest weekend, when Ntamack’s club, Toulouse, play Clermont in the Top 14.
The 20-minute red card trial, as announced by World Rugby at the end of last year, would have seen this offence earn an automatic four-week suspension. But that element appears to have been shelved for now.
Scotland against Italy was an easy run-out for Dickson. The Scots, mixing good with bad, did try to play a high-octane game and might well be a hot enough potato on Sunday. Their work at the breakdown was characteristically chaotic and they’ll no doubt be planning a reprise. Ireland must do their utmost to ensure that Doleman, who will be refereeing, does not adopt a laissez-faire policy. If he does, there may be trouble ahead.
