'URC must get refereeing structure right' – Stuart Lancaster

Leinster’s senior coach believes absence of manager for match officials is leading to inconsistency

Leinster senior coach Stuart Lancaster. Photo: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

Ruaidhri O'Connor Twitter

October 19 2021 02:30 AM

The United Rugby Championship launched to great fanfare with shiny new branding, a revised format and a partnership with Jay Z’s Roc Nation agency that caught the eye.

Of course, it was the on-field action that would define the success of the competition.

Selling the rights to free-to-air broadcasters has taken the provinces’ games out of the shadowy corner in which they existed for the past number of years, while the reduced number of games and lack of European action before November has meant that the stars have been on show.

Sure, if you took a global view you’d worry about the competitive balance between the three leading Irish provinces and the rest, about the lack of engagement that still exists in Wales and the mediocre performances of the South Africans.

It will take something extraordinary to stop Leinster from winning a fifth successive title, but there’s only so much the organisers can do in that regard without access to a salary cap.

One thing they can take responsibility for is the refereeing and that has been a major issue so far.

Certainly, the four South African franchises have found it difficult to adjust to the northern hemisphere way of doing things, but they’re not alone in being unhappy with the officiating thus far.

On Saturday night, Connacht felt they were undone by what coach Andy Friend described as an “inexcusable error” by Television Match Official (TMO) Brian MacNeice in his side’s defeat to Munster when he and referee Chris Busby awarded a try to Chris Cloete when it appeared Tadhg Beirne had been in an offside position.

Friend expressed frustration that there is currently no referees’ manager in place at the URC, with former English official Greg Garner leaving that position at the end of last season. He has not yet been replaced.

His comments echoed those of Stormers coach John Dobson who was left frustrated that he could not meet with referees before games as he had in Super Rugby.

Yesterday, Leinster senior coach Stuart Lancaster expressed his concern that the league lacks a central figure to give feedback to coaches and referees alike.

“It’s a massive part of the evolution of our competition, but also of refereeing in general,” he said.

“In England you’ve got Tony Spreadbury who is managing the referees (before moving to European Professional Club Rugby as Head of Match Officials later this year).

“Every week, they would meet on a conference call, take the respective learnings from each and every game that’s been played in the Premiership.

“I don’t think it’s any coincidence that a lot of the English referees are rising up to become international referees, because the development and management they get in terms of feedback – how do you develop if you don’t get feedback, if you don’t co-ordinate decisions and assess the form of the officials?

“In the URC, Greg Garner’s position was slightly different. He was trying to manage referees in different countries, each of which have their own referees’ manager and I think that made it harder.

“Now, there’s no Greg Garner at all and I think it’s a real void, I really do.

“Personally, we feel like the performances of the referees in our games have been fine. The quality has been there, the worry would be that there’s no central point to co-ordinate feedback, we get inconsistency across the board and we don’t get learnings.

“World Rugby have their own (process), Joe (Schmidt) and Joel Jutge, the referees’ manager, the top end you have that sort of co-ordinated system where you’ve got Joel Jutge trying to manage referees from different countries, it’s those guys leading from the top and refereeing the game the way it should be refereed, that will trickle down.

“That has to be done from the top, if there’s no one at the top then it begs the question how the referees can continue to develop?”

After this weekend, there’s a long gap until the next URC game and it appears imperative that they’ve filled their refereeing vacancy before it returns.