“If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same . . .”
At some stage in our lives, many of us have found inspiration and comfort in Rudyard Kipling’s wondrous poem, If. Maybe Leo Cullen has too.
Leinster have had their fair measure of disasters over the last few years, with nothing to show on the triumph side of the balance sheet. Losing finals and semi-finals by small margins has been bitter medicine. Not to mention the penalty try that went missing in the Champions Cup semi-final against Northampton.
Through all of this, Cullen has remained calm, dignified, not once trying to lay the blame at the door of any match official. Not publicly anyway. It’s doubtful I was alone in forecasting that the trophy would be heading south of the equator. Unusually, it’s quite a pleasure to have been proved wrong.
The Counter Ruck: the rugby newsletter from The Irish Times
‘There is no animosity,’ says England’s Ben Earl of his Lions teammates despite fiery Six Nations
Owen Doyle: Rugby players seem to think they can interrogate referees. It needs to stop
Gerry Thornley: The true story of Leinster in the 2020s is one of remarkable success
It wasn’t just a win, it was a performance of the highest quality where everything clicked. The normally powerful Bulls had no answer. The coach of the San Francisco 49ers, the great Bill Walsh, entitled his leadership book The Score Takes Care of Itself. That’s precisely what happened.
Now here’s a key question. Can the scrum spoil the Lions series? The short answer is yes, but there are a few relevant reasons that might provide a glimmer of hope. We have seen too many top-class matches badly impacted by illegal scrummaging, including the URC final and, for good measure, the English Premiership final.
However, Lions coach Andy Farrell and Australia counterpart Joe Schmidt both favour positive play, with Farrell’s men likely having the stronger scrum. So, for example, on the Lions put-in, let’s hope the intention will be to play the ball away, not to try and pulverise the opposition to win a penalty.
On Australian ball, legitimate disruptive actions, including pushing straight, should be ordained. World Rugby elite referee manager, Joel Jutge, is bound to have had discussions with the two coaches with a view to working out an agreed scrummaging modus operandi.
Failing that, the appointed referees can help the situation, as well as themselves, by being stronger with scrum decisions.
“This is not what we agreed before the game,” said referee Andrea Piardi as he reset yet another scrum during the URC final. If it isn’t what was agreed, by all means tell them, but don’t omit a necessary accompanying sanction. Later on, with only eight minutes left, he was still appealing for good behaviour.
Otherwise, Piardi had a good match. None of his decisions affected anything very much, certainly not the clear-cut result. It was not the dog-eat-dog fight that had been widely anticipated.
It was also important that there was no controversy; there has been far too much of it during the season. There have been some poor refereeing performances for long enough and it is a dreadful blot on the URC landscape. The clubs should be up on the rooftops, shouting “enough”.
Piardi is not alone in bringing trouble to his own doorstep by having long conversations with players who are all too keen to disagree with decisions.
Players, not just the captains, are constantly appealing, even though they know perfectly well why the call has been made. It’s happening far too much and getting worse. Referees are being subjected to interrogations, with players also pointing to real or imagined offences by their opponents. It will be interesting to see how this stuff is handled in the Lions series.
Piardi will referee the second Lions test – the first Italian to do so. Molte congratulazioni.
He will have an uncomfortable time if he allows players to be consistently in his ear. Piardi must keep his chat to concise, precise explanations and not be drawn into debates. Referees should only deal with the captain. It is clear that match officials have overdone their desire to be seen as the players’ understanding friend. That approach is now backfiring.
Then there is the TMO. How will that operate on the Lions tour? The Premiership final saw it reach new levels of interruption. The TMO, Ian Tempest, cooked up a different storm by bringing several, very marginal issues to Karl Dickson’s attention. These took an age to conclude and could just as easily have been decided the other way around.
One of these was farcical. The question was whether or not Leicester’s Nicky Smith, on the ground under his own posts, had deliberately handled the ball. Solomon was needed to apply his wisdom to this one, but not so easy for a mere referee. Dickson took a long time to find in favour of Smith. Tempest also asked the referee to take a look at Dan Cole thumping late into Russell and the resulting yellow card raised another debate. Cole’s coach, Michael Cheika, was livid.
The wise referee rule-of-thumb, that only the clear and obvious should be sanctioned, must also apply to TMO intrusions. Otherwise, silence please.
Then there is the intolerance of coaches towards match officials’ mistakes. If there is a fingertip knock-on in the build up to a vital try, which is only seen afterwards, then the affected team’s coach will blow an almighty fuse; we see it often enough. What a pity that rugby’s Corinthian spirit has long since left the building.
