by World Rugby has been criticized by one of its chief referees for introducing the official television match “bunker” at such short notice before this year’s World Cup.
French referee Mathieu Raynal also believes that referees should be able to explain their decisions to the media after the match.
World Rugby, with the backing of its official match body, introduced its new ‘bunker’ system – where referees refer incidents of foul play that reach a yellow card threshold to a secondary TMO for further analysis and assessment as it continues. the match – during this summer Rugby Championship and warm-ups leading up to the sport’s biggest event in the autumn, which was plagued by refereeing decisions and controversies. A handful of officials, such as England’s Wayne Barnes, received death threats.
Raynal, who refereed England’s victories against Argentina and Fiji at the World Cup in France, has lamented the lack of transparency created by the bunker.
“I think it was probably a mistake to put the bunker in at the last moment, just before the World Cup, without practicing it and using it more,” said the 42-year-old after being named France’s best referee at the French rugby awards. this week. “That was a mistake. It was also difficult, because you send a situation to the bunker, they come back with a decision and you can’t explain to the world why you made that decision.
“Before that, we could put words on pictures and take people by the hand and they followed us to the final decision. It was interesting in terms of communication and explanation. Now, with the bunker, we cut that relationship with the people in front of their televisions or with the people in the stands, which was difficult.
“I said it, before the World Cup, when we discussed how we should communicate to the press if there had been an error that changed the game. My take on it is that we should keep it very simple: I go and sit in a chair and explain, ‘Okay, guys, I made a mistake.’ The game was so fast that I made an error in judgment. I’m not sorry as my job is to referee and mistakes can happen but I’m sad but it is what it is. What do you want me to do? “I will not jump from the top of a building because I made a mistake on the field.” It’s the life of referees.
“I hope we keep the relationship between coaches, referees, players and fans as simple as possible. It’s easier when you tell the fans, ‘Yes, I made a mistake.’ What can we do after that?
A World Rugby spokesperson told Telegraph Sport: “The Bunker was born from the results of the Shape of the Game 2022 meeting, where coaches, match officials and administrators came together to explore ways to improve the accuracy of foul play decisions. while reducing game downtime.
“Change can be difficult to adapt to and we congratulate the match officials team for embracing the concept in a professional manner.”
The bunker – and TMO in general – has become one of the biggest talking points in rugby, with former Australia coach Eddie Jones recently claiming that “the use of TMO is fraught with danger”. Raynal, however, did not rush to eliminate the official’s presence in the truck.
“It would be interesting to see a game without TMO,” said the Frenchman. “After one mistake people accepted it, after two mistakes they started to complain and after three mistakes they asked for the TMO to be recovered. We cannot fight against errors or avoid refereeing errors. We just have to accept it and we will waste less energy fighting to achieve zero errors in a match.
“You can put a drone, something on the ball, experts everywhere, 20 bunkers, but that won’t change the fact that at times you have to accept mistakes from the referees. The game is very fast, we make decisions in a fraction of a second.
“In rugby we forgive the mistakes of the players, we forgive the mistakes of the coaches, but we never forgive the mistakes of the referees. We accept it, but people must understand that our sport is more important than victory or defeat.
“Rugby has to think about that, what exactly they want in the future and what kind of sport we are going to give our children. We still have a sport full of values, but it is starting to change a little. “We have to be careful in the next few years about where we go as a sport.”
The change in sports values refers to the growing trend of abuse on social media. Telegraph Sport revealed last week how World Rugby had become the sport’s first governing body to take action against fans responsible for extreme online abuse of referees by passing files of evidence to government and police agencies, with 200 incidents identified in seven different countries.
“Obviously we cannot accept [social media abuse]Raynal said. “We don’t accept it on the street, so why do we accept it on social media? I totally agree with Wayne. [Barnes] in that. We have to be stronger. I think the laws and the government have to be stricter in that regard. This is really important for referees and also for the sport.
“A part of you enjoys the World Cup because it is a World Cup. It was in my country. It is a great event in the world. But another part of you doesn’t like it because, as a group, we don’t like to be in the middle of controversies. I don’t like seeing friends in the storm of social media. We try to do our best. We don’t say we are perfect. We cannot fight the power of footage, the power of slow motion and the power of social media. Even if we try our best, we can’t fight it.”
However, despite the growing vitriol, Raynal has no plans to follow Barnes and hang up his boots just yet after winning his second consecutive best referee award at the Nuit du Rugby this week.
“It’s a great honor to be voted referee of the year by the players, the coaches and the other referees,” he said. “It means a lot to me but more to my son. He is very happy about that.”
Cockerill runs for Georgia seat
By Charles Richardson
Richard Cockerill has emerged as a leading candidate for Georgia’s vacant head coaching position, just days after being fired by Montpellier.
Telegraph Sport has learned that the Georgia Rugby Union board will meet on Friday to discuss its vacancy, and Cockerill’s name stands out on the shortlist. Should he win the race, the 52-year-old would follow in the footsteps of his former Leicester teammate Graham Rowntree, who was part of Georgia’s coaching team for the 2019 World Cup.
After leaving his role as England scrum coach at the end of the last Six Nations, Cockerill signed as assistant to Philippe Saint-André in Montpellier. However, both Cockerill and the French legend left the Mohed Altrad-owned French giants this week after a derby defeat to Perpignan left them bottom of the Top 14, a win out of seven.
Controversially, Altrad hired Bernard Laporte as the duo’s replacement, and he arrived at Montpellier as director of rugby along with a new team of coaches.
The former France coach and former vice-president of World Rugby resigned as president of the Fédération Française de Rugby in January after being found guilty of an illegal conflict of interest, inside influence and four cases of passive corruption, each “guided by a bias towards” Altrad, who is a close friend. Laporte is appealing the ruling.
René Bouscatel, president of the French Top 14 league, said: “It is a matter that only concerns those at the club and Bernard. It’s their business. I respect it on a sporting level, but it’s their business. Under French law, you are innocent until proven guilty. We can think what we want but that is what it is.
“It is a choice that Montpellier made. It’s great to have someone with Bernard’s skills and experience coming to the club. It’s a club problem. “Everyone makes their own decisions.”
