by World Rugby has come under fire from one of its main referees for introducing the official “bunker” of the televised game at such short notice ahead of this year’s World Cup.
French referee Mathieu Raynal also believes that officials should be able to explain their decisions to the media after a match.
World Rugby, with the support of the official games body, introduced its new ‘bunker’ system – where referees refer foul play incidents that reach the yellow card threshold to a secondary TMO for further analysis and assessment while the match continues. – during this time. The summer Rugby Championship and preliminary games before the big sporting event in the autumn. The World Cup itself was then plagued by controversial refereeing decisions. A handful of officers, such as Englishman Wayne Barnes, received death threats.
Raynal, who praised England’s victories against Argentina and Fiji at the World Cup in France, is complaining about the lack of transparency created by the bunker.
“I think it was probably a mistake to put the bunker in at the last minute right before the World Cup without practicing it and getting more use out of it,” the 42-year-old said after named the best referee in France at the French rugby awards. this week. “It was a mistake. It was tough, too, because you send a case to the bunker, they come back to you with a decision, and you can’t explain to the world why you made that decision.
“Before, we could put words on the footage and we could touch people and they followed us to the final decision. That was interesting in terms of communication and explanation. Now, with the bunker, we cut this relationship with the people in front of their TVs or the people in the stands, which was difficult.
“I said, before the World Cup, when we discussed how we should communicate in front of the press if there was a mistake that changed the game. My view on that is that we have to keep it very simple – I go and sit on a chair, and explain, ‘Okay, guys, I made a mistake. The game was so fast, I made an error of judgement. I’m not sorry about it, because it’s my job as a referee and mistakes can be made, but I’m sorry about it – but it is what it is. What do you want me to do? I won’t jump off a building because I made a mistake on the field.’ It’s the life of referees.
“I hope we keep the relationship between the coaches, the referees, the players and the fans as simple as we can. It’s easier when you say to fans, ‘Yes, I made a mistake.’ What can we do next?”
A World Rugby spokesperson told Telegraph Sport: “The bunker was born out of the results of the ‘Shape of the game’ meeting in 2022 when coaches, match officials and administrators came together to explore ways to improve the accuracy of foul play decisions, and reducing the stoppage time of games. .
“Change can be difficult to adapt to and we commend the game’s official team for embracing the concept in a professional manner.”
‘We have to be careful where we go as a sport’
The bunker – and the TMO in general – has become one of rugby’s biggest talking points, with former Australian head coach Eddie Jones recently claiming that “the use of the TMO is fraught with danger”. Raynal, however, would not be so quick to remove the officer’s presence in the truck.
“It would be interesting to see a game without a TMO,” said the Frenchman. “After one mistake people would accept it, after two mistakes they would start complaining and then after three mistakes they would ask for the TMO to be brought back. We cannot fight mistakes or avoid referee mistakes. We just have to accept it, and we will lose less energy fighting for zero mistakes in a game.
“You can put up a drone, something in the ball, experts everywhere, 20 bunkers, but that won’t change the fact that sometimes you have to accept referees’ mistakes. The game is very fast, we make decisions in a split-second.
“In rugby we forgive player mistakes, we forgive coaching mistakes, but we never forgive referee mistakes. We accept that, but people need to understand that our sport is more important than winning or losing.
“Rugby has to think about that, what exactly do they want in the future, and what kind of sport are we going to give our children. We still have a sport full of values – but it’s starting to change a bit. We have to be careful in the next few years about where we go as a sport.”
The change in the values of the sport refers to the growing trend of abuse on social media. Telegraph Sport revealed last week that World Rugby had become the first sports governing body to take action against fans responsible for widespread abuse of referees online by passing files of evidence to law enforcement and government agencies – with 200 incidents identified across seven different countries.
“Obviously we cannot accept it [social media abuse],” said Raynal. “We don’t accept it on the street, so why do we accept it on social media? I completely agree with Wayne [Barnes] on that. We have to be stronger. The laws and the government need to be stronger on that, I think. That is extremely important for referees – and sport too.
“Some of you enjoy the World Cup because it is the World Cup. It was in my country. It’s a big event all over the world. But some of you don’t like it because, as a group, we don’t like to be in the middle of controversy. I don’t like seeing friends in the social media storm. We try to do our best. We don’t say we are perfect. We cannot fight against the power of film, the power of slow motion and the power of social media. Even if we do our best, we cannot fight against it.”
Despite the growing vitriol, however, Raynal Barnes has no plans to follow suit and hang up his boots immediately after picking up his second 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, coaches and other referees,” he said. “It means a lot to me but more to my son. He is very happy about it.”
Cockerill in the running for the role of Georgia
By Charles Richardson
Richard Cockerill has emerged as the leading candidate for the vacant head coaching role in Georgia, just days after Montpellier took the job.
Telegraph Sport has learned that the Georgian Rugby Union board will meet on Friday to discuss the vacancy, with Cockerill’s name on the shortlist. Should he win the race, the 52-year-old would follow in the footsteps of former Leicester team-mate Graham Rowntree, who was part of the Georgian coaching ticket to 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 at Montpellier. Both Cockerill and the French legend left the French giants, owned by Mohed Altrad, this week, however, after a derby loss to Perpignan they left at the bottom of the Top 14, with one win out of seven .
Controversially, Altrad has lined up Bernard Laporte as a replacement for both, coming to Montpellier as director of rugby along with a new coaching staff.
The former France head coach and World Rugby vice-chairman resigned as president of the Fédération Française de Rugby in January after being found guilty of an illegal conflict of interest, insider influence, and four corruption cases passive, each “under the guidance of her inclination towards” Altrad, who is a close friend. Laporte is appealing the ruling.
Rene Bouscatel, president of France’s top league, Top 14, said: “It’s a question that only concerns those at the club and Bernard. It is their business. I respect him on a sporting level, but it’s their business. In French law you are innocent until proven guilty. We can think anything we want but that’s what it is.
“It was a choice made by Montpellier. It is very good that someone with Bernard’s skills and experience comes to the club. It’s a club problem. Everyone makes their choices.”
