From S Jones' Rolling maul:
It absolutely beggars belief that anyone could have been appointed to such an enormous game when they had refereed one of the teams - in this case, Munster - FIVE times in big matches this season. They won every one. The colossal advantage of knowing exactly how he would referee each aspect of the game - including his many personal idiosyncrasies, especially in the contact area - is disgracefully unfair. It was as if Munster had been given their pet ref.
Thanks Newboy for posting this- I kept reading about comments from Guy Noves, and now Jones about how Munster had Owens x-times during the course of the season and I'm pretty sick and tired of this crap.
Now, hear me out:
-Owens earned the appointment on MERIT (OK, an Irish or French ref was ineligible due to the teams playing, but of the rest, let's assume he earned it).
- If referees cannot referee matches where teams from their own country are involved, are we going to go the extra-step and say that you need to have referee'd both teams during the season (or neither team, or one of the teams, but less than x times, where x is a very small number???)
You get a call from your coach telling you that you earned the appointment, but that you didn't get the appointment b/c you had refereed one of the teams too often. The big question is how many obscenities are you allowed to say before your coach hangs up the phone? In how many languages?
- If Owens had refereed the Toulouse v. L-Irish Semi-Final, would the same comments have been made???
Feck'em. I noticed it was the same team-of-3 for each of the k/out matches, so here's to the HC-appointments committee for naming the best team possible for the final.
I'm done ranting...