Refereeing decisions

[JRugby2]

And Jonker escapes scot-free for missing what everyone else saw. Not only at the time but in subsequent replays.

In fairness we have no idea what the outcome for the referee's in this series will be - good or bad.

It's not that easy to drop or change out referees for performance issues at an international level. With the amount of travel and planning that needs to happen to get MO's to games around their lives (eg: some are not full time employees of their home unions and work in other areas), and appointments happen months in advance and rarely change unless they have to because of the difficulty.

So referees being held accountable may or may not be as obvious to the casual viewer as they might want.

 

[John S]

In fairness we have no idea what the outcome for the referee's in this series will be - good or bad.

It's not that easy to drop or change out referees for performance issues at an international level. With the amount of travel and planning that needs to happen to get MO's to games around their lives (eg: some are not full time employees of their home unions and work in other areas), and appointments happen months in advance and rarely change unless they have to because of the difficulty.

So referees being held accountable may or may not be as obvious to the casual viewer as they might want.

I'd say there would most likely be some kind of education component depending on what happens with any reviews

 

[Strewthcobber]

In partial defence of Jonker, it's very hard to see any obvious foul play on Lynagh through the 31st minute live on the broadcast view. He doesn't stay down or anything like that, and in fact kicks a penalty straight after with no apparent ill effects.

There does also seem to be some far worse challenges - other players charging into the ruck - through that period. It is test rugby. It's pretty full on.

It's not until we get the front-on view well after the TMO can intervene that we see just how bad it is.

Probably not one that even gets looked at until Lynagh goes off for his HIA 2 mins later

 

[Wilson]

There is very much a systems issue here, the smart mouthguards should be triggering a pretty much immediate (behind the scenes) review by the TMO of an incident, but without knowing how things are currently working I imagine it's still a series of independant systems at play and which leads to the delays before the incident is looked at. Even if those systems were well integrated there are also pretty clear delays between the impact and the assessment being triggered which won't help. I do hope we'll get there in the next few years, probably not until after the world cup though. The other thing that would probably help here is an assistant tmo or two so that someone can always be watching live while inicdents are being reviewed before being brought to the refs attention. Needs to be well managed to not create too much noise though.

None of that really excuses the other Jonker issue though - pausing the game to look at a play so irrelevant that no one, the ref included, seem to understand why it was being replayed.

 

[JRugby2]

In partial defence of Jonker, it's very hard to see any obvious foul play on Lynagh through the 31st minute live on the broadcast view. He doesn't stay down or anything like that, and in fact kicks a penalty straight after with no apparent ill effects.

There does also seem to be some far worse challenges - players charging timto the ruck through that period. It is test rugby. It's pretty full on.

It's not until we get the front-on view well after the TMO can intervene that we see just how bad it is.

And the extension of this is, yes there are heaps of camera angles available to him (like the one we saw well after the fact) but like anyone performing a similar role where the task is to watch 20 different camera angles all at once, unless there is a sign that somethings happened (Lynagh stays down for example, or the broadcast angle is the best and therefore it's obvious) it increases the chance that it will be missed - especially since to that angle, it was pretty innocuous. They have a 4 people in the box watching these angles (TMO, FPRO and 2 Assistants - 1 for each), which helps - but again, it's not absolutely foolproof.

 

[Major Tom]

In partial defence of Jonker, it's very hard to see any obvious foul play on Lynagh through the 31st minute live on the broadcast view. He doesn't stay down or anything like that, and in fact kicks a penalty straight after with no apparent ill effects.

There does also seem to be some far worse challenges - other players charging into the ruck - through that period. It is test rugby. It's pretty full on.

It's not until we get the front-on view well after the TMO can intervene that we see just how bad it is.

Probably not one that even gets looked at until Lynagh goes off for his HIA 2 mins later

Still doesn't explain why he went back to look at the Nic White one though. Time we will never get back.
Do TMO's have access to different TV angles or just what we get?

 

[Braveheart81]

In partial defence of Jonker, it's very hard to see any obvious foul play on Lynagh through the 31st minute live on the broadcast view. He doesn't stay down or anything like that, and in fact kicks a penalty straight after with no apparent ill effects.

There does also seem to be some far worse challenges - other players charging into the ruck - through that period. It is test rugby. It's pretty full on.

It's not until we get the front-on view well after the TMO can intervene that we see just how bad it is.

Probably not one that even gets looked at until Lynagh goes off for his HIA 2 mins later

It does show you that Lynagh should have stayed down after the hit and ensured that play was stopped and he received treatment. It would have been almost inevitable that the issue would have been looked at and at least a yellow card issued.

The Nic White review was the glaring mistake. How did he look at that incident and then consider it worthy of further review?

 

[JRugby2]

There is very much a systems issue here, the smart mouthguards should be triggering a pretty much immediate (behind the scenes) review by the TMO of an incident, but without knowing how things are currently working I imagine it's still a series of independant systems at play and which leads to the delays before the incident is looked at. Even if those systems were well integrated there are also pretty clear delays between the impact and the assessment being triggered which won't help. I do hope we'll get there in the next few years, probably not until after the world cup though. The other thing that would probably help here is an assistant tmo or two so that someone can always be watching live while inicdents are being reviewed before being brought to the refs attention. Needs to be well managed to not create too much noise though.

None of that really excuses the other Jonker issue though - pausing the game to look at a play so irrelevant that no one, the ref included, seem to understand why it was being replayed.

Pure guess here, but the Lynagh hit was done - and he'd know about it by then. Could be a bit hypersensitive after missing something that was genuinely bad.

 

[Wilson]

Pure guess here, but the Lynagh hit was done - and he'd know about it by then. Could be a bit hypersensitive after missing something that was genuinely bad.

That's my read on it too, and while understandable it's very much a failing that an experienced pro like Jonker should be better than. You see similar behavior (at least in appearance) from referees, but generally not the best ones.

 

[Major Tom]

It does show you that Lynagh should have stayed down after the hit and ensured that play was stopped and he received treatment. It would have been almost inevitable that the issue would have been looked at and at least a yellow card issued.

The Nic White review was the glaring mistake. How did he look at that incident and then consider it worthy of further review?

I'd say Lynagh probably didn't want to go off. Probably thought he would be letting his team down. Which we need to change. Or he genuinely thought he was ok.

 

[Braveheart81]

And the extension of this is, yes there are heaps of camera angles available to him (like the one we saw well after the fact) but like anyone performing a similar role where the task is to watch 20 different camera angles all at once, unless there is a sign that somethings happened (Lynagh stays down for example, or the broadcast angle is the best and therefore it's obvious) it increases the chance that it will be missed. They have a 4 people in the box watching these angles (TMO, FPRO and 2 Assistants - 1 for each), which helps - but again, it's not absolutely foolproof.

It would be interesting to know exactly what they have in the TMO booth when the play is live? Are they getting a live feed of multiple angles or are they just getting the broadcast feed and then have the ability to look at other camera angles of a specific time when required?

 

[Major Tom]

That's my read on it too, and while understandable it's very much a failing that an experienced pro like Jonker should be better than. You see similar behavior (at least in appearance) from referees, but generally not the best ones.

I'd like to know the timeline of events. Lynagh got hit. We get a penalty but not in the same play? He kicks the penalty and then comes off for a HIA before or after the kickoff (I can't remember).
Did this trigger the investigation from Jonker or did the footage coming from STAN trigger it a bit later?
Also when is the cut off point for reviewing an incident, is it the same as for a try/no try?

 

[Tomthumb]

Pure guess here, but the Lynagh hit was done - and he'd know about it by then. Could be a bit hypersensitive after missing something that was genuinely bad.

Compounding a mistake with another mistake isn't normally the smartest thing to do

 

[Tomthumb]

I'd like to know the timeline of events. Lynagh got hit. We get a penalty but not in the same play? He kicks the penalty and then comes off for a HIA before or after the kickoff (I can't remember).
Did this trigger the investigation from Jonker or did the footage coming from STAN trigger it a bit later?

There was never an investigation from Jonker. It was his job to pick it up, he failed and the citing commissioner deemed it a red card on review

 

[Major Tom]

There was never an investigation from Jonker. It was his job to pick it up, he failed and the citing commissioner deemed it a red card on review

What I mean was what happens when a HIA occurs? Does this trigger a further look back or do they just continue onwards? Does the TMO only replay stuff they have flagged?

 

[Tomthumb]

What I mean was what happens when a HIA occurs? Does this trigger a further look back or do they just continue onwards? Does the TMO only replay stuff they have flagged?

Common sense would say that the TMO should be notified at the same time as the independent doctor when the mouthguard pings

 

[Strewthcobber]

It would be interesting to know exactly what they have in the TMO booth when the play is live? Are they getting a live feed of multiple angles or are they just getting the broadcast feed and then have the ability to look at other camera angles of a specific time when required?

Apparently it's a live screen, a replay screen, and a couple of other screens showing camera angles and what's live.

It's used for both TMO "live reviews", but also to line things up for the ref on the big screen

 

[Strewthcobber]

What I mean was what happens when a HIA occurs? Does this trigger a further look back or do they just continue onwards? Does the TMO only replay stuff they have flagged?

The TMO can only review foul play until the restart of play after the foul play occurs.

So in this case, hit happens, penalty for separate incident. Lynagh restart play with a penalty kick so TMO can't review any more.

After that, HIA review triggered by mouth guard (presumably). Lynagh taken off. TMO review at the same time and will flag incident for citing commissioner review.

 

[JRugby2]

Apparently it's a live screen, a replay screen, and a couple of other screens showing camera angles and what's live.

It's used for both TMO "live reviews", but also to line things up for the ref on the big screen

It also depends on the ground and broadcaster I think. Different venues have different set ups making it easier/harder. I seen on stadium tours before that some have up to 8 screens set up showing different angles - they also have a direct line to the broadcaster to give them certain angles when they want them.

This was one of the reasons the NRL transitioned to the bunker to standardise TMO operations. Much harder to do at an international level.

 

[JRugby2]

Compounding a mistake with another mistake isn't normally the smartest thing to do

Definitely not defending it. Both incidents in my view are pretty average.