4eyesbetter
Referees in England
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- Oct 31, 2010
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Situation: Attackers have a maul pulled down about 5m from the goal line. Referee stops play for a penalty and to sin-bin the offender. An attacker goes down to a knee just in front of the mark.
Referee deals with miscreant, walks slowly back to the mark. No whistle, no signal. Injured player is still down on a knee, and is now receiving attention. Attacker takes the ball, wanders up to the mark. No whistle, no signal. Attacker takes a tap penalty and spins the ball wide. Defenders are onside and in a line, but completely flat-footed, and the attackers go over virtually unopposed in the corner.
Referee awards try, and says by way of explanation "I hadn't stopped anything". Pedantry aside, how is this not extremely unfair on the defenders? I've never before seen a restart after that kind of stoppage that didn't occur on the whistle. It'd be one thing if they were dozying around in a half-huddle and a quick tap on the whistle caught them out, but they were in position for play to restart, and given absolutely no warning that it was about to happen - which would be bad enough on its own, but there was also an injured player down and receiving attention right in front of everyone.
(To make things even better, the only signal the referee gave when stopping play was one arm straight up, which I understand is y'all's 'time off' signal, and the on-screen clock stopped when he did so. He never signalled for a penalty at any point, and he certainly didn't repeat the signal to put time back on.)
Referee deals with miscreant, walks slowly back to the mark. No whistle, no signal. Injured player is still down on a knee, and is now receiving attention. Attacker takes the ball, wanders up to the mark. No whistle, no signal. Attacker takes a tap penalty and spins the ball wide. Defenders are onside and in a line, but completely flat-footed, and the attackers go over virtually unopposed in the corner.
Referee awards try, and says by way of explanation "I hadn't stopped anything". Pedantry aside, how is this not extremely unfair on the defenders? I've never before seen a restart after that kind of stoppage that didn't occur on the whistle. It'd be one thing if they were dozying around in a half-huddle and a quick tap on the whistle caught them out, but they were in position for play to restart, and given absolutely no warning that it was about to happen - which would be bad enough on its own, but there was also an injured player down and receiving attention right in front of everyone.
(To make things even better, the only signal the referee gave when stopping play was one arm straight up, which I understand is y'all's 'time off' signal, and the on-screen clock stopped when he did so. He never signalled for a penalty at any point, and he certainly didn't repeat the signal to put time back on.)
