Christophe Berdos

[chief]

In my opinion, I have never seen such a poor refereeing performance at this level.

Berdos' lack of English has probably contributed, however he regularly has called an advantage, but never finished it. Can think on the top of my head about 5 or even more times.

Late tackles missed. Wallabies constantly falling over the player.

Plenty of Australian forward passes missed.

Scrums were a farce, should have dispatched Slipper in the bin. Lot's of illegal binding both ways, it is simply dangerous.

To put it simply, Berdos is not fit to officiate, simply not good enough on many levels. I wouldn't trust him in a local 3rd grade local game.

 

[Donal1988]

I wouldn't trust him in a local 3rd grade local game.

With comments like this hard to take a rant seriously.

 

[chief]

With comments like this hard to take a rant seriously.

Did you watch the game?

 

[Donal1988]

No I didn't. I have no doubt that Berdos did poorly. I don't rate him myself. I think if you truly believe an IRB referee referee would be out of his depth at amatuer 3rds level its hard to take you seriously. Stupid thing to say and makes you look prone to knee jerk reactions.

 

[chief]

No I didn't. I have no doubt that Berdos did poorly. I don't rate him myself. I think if you truly believe an IRB referee referee would be out of his depth at amatuer 3rds level its hard to take you seriously. Stupid thing to say and makes you look prone to knee jerk reactions.

It's called a exaggeration, of course he'd be fine at that level, it was as if to say that he's not at IRB Level.

As for your comments in this thread, they are completely unnecessary, and I would regard them as spam.

Don't comment on something you haven't seen, or you are to provide no substance to your post, regarding the topic.

 

[ckuxmann]

He's just pointing out the fallacies within your argument, no need to get defense there chief.

 

[andyscott]

It's called a exaggeration, of course he'd be fine at that level, it was as if to say that he's not at IRB Level.

Yet he is good enough to be at that level as

1. he is there
2. People who make the decisions and know a fair bit about the game think he should be there.

 

[Bryan]

Did you watch the game?

I only saw the first half, and actually thought it was a good performance.

Can you be specific on the advantages? I actually thought this was played very well in the first half.

As for the scrums, I felt that (up to the first half) he managed it well; there were 2 PKs against Gold #1, but another one against Gold #3. The entire Gold Front Row was under pressure. I wouldn't necessarily put any one prop in the bin here (at the end of the first half) given that Italy were picking and choosing which side to attack depending on which side they were loading-up (do you really think they always picked to attack Gold #1? They didn't; Lo Cicero, the Blue #1, was giving it thick to the Gold #3 as well).

With comments like this hard to take a rant seriously.

I would probably phrase it like this:

Without specific examples, relating to time in the game and a credible evaluation of what was occurring, blanket statements followed-up with a hyperbole give me the impression that your fact-checking is lacking in detail and your opinion is already made up.

As for your comments in this thread, they are completely unnecessary, and I would regard them as spam.

Yours are not much better.

 

[Ian_Cook]

In my opinion, I have never seen such a poor refereeing performance at this level.

Then you haven't seen Scotland v South Africa!!

I think if you truly believe an IRB referee referee would be out of his depth at amatuer 3rds level its hard to take you seriously. Stupid thing to say and makes you look prone to knee jerk reactions.

Careful Donal, you will find your maturity being called into question soon.:biggrin:

 

[Davet]

Play nicely, children.

 

[the magpie]

I watched the game last night, and he did well in some areas, and I thought the scrums were one of those areas. I think you had Italy trying to put it over a weaker pack, but binding by both sets of props was terrible.

The rucks degenerated as the game went on, so he had some problems there.

The other area was Australia was guilty of that many late hits, and without penalising Australia a single time, meant that the Wallabies kept doing it.

It was a terrible game, and while the referee contributed in a small way to this, I think the Australian and Italian rugby teams were the main contributers.

 

[L'irlandais]

Hi Chief,
I meant to post a reply earlier, 'cos in fairness to Christophe Berdos, I do honestly feel he's not that bad a ref. The guy was a player before become a professional referee, however injury put an end to his playing career at the tender age of 18. He's now 40 years old, and has been reffin' for 22 years. In his own word he doesn't like blowing up the fault, prefering to play advantage when possible to create a more flowing game. (With-in the limits of the laws of the game).
He also says an Elite game, requires about 200 decisions to be taken by the referee. He doesn't know any human being capable of getting all 200 of these correct. He is confident that he does his best to reduce the number of mistakes he makes.

He has gotten a fair amount of stick in the French press. Mostly from France's answer to Brendan Venter, so to be taken with a pinch of salt. ie. Racing-Métro's Pierre Berbizier run-in with this referee, like Mr. Ventner's, only goes to show that it's the french coach who could do with more training (in how to deal with the media). Had he done some earlier, then he might have avoided being suspended for another 60 days.

Berdos had the honour of ref'in his first Top 14 final this year. He also was best French ref last season. Oh, and his English isn't all that good, by the looks of it.

Source : French telly (in French)

 

[Dixie]

He also says an Elite game, requires about 200 decisions to be taken by the referee.

I suspect this is a serious understatement, referring only to "positive" decisions. The referee takes "negative" decisions (i.e. ones where there is no positive indication that the ref has taken it) all the time: at any given tackle, the ref will decide whether the hit was itself legal; whether the tackler released OK; whether the tackled player released OK; whether the next arriving player arrived through the gate; whether his attitude equated to "planes arriving" or "planes taking off"; when a ruck forms. That's a minimum of six decisions at each tackle. In the last round of the Autumn internationals, there averaged 170ish tackle/ruck interfaces, which alone accounts for over 1000 decisions. I assume Christophe was looking at open play, scrums etc as well, so the total is far higher than he thinks.

 

[L'irlandais]

... I assume Christophe was looking at open play, scrums etc as well, so the total is far higher than he thinks.

Hi Dixie,
I suspect you're right on that. In the 20 minute TV programme, the bit about his sitting down after the match to analyse his own performance was fairly short. I suspect the software he uses, only deals with the calls he's made (& those he should have made) during the game, rather than the 1000's of "decisions" * going thru' his mind as he goes about his work. Most of these *subconscious thoughts will have slipped his mind by the time he gets home to file his report.