Rose's fault (Sale vs Wasps)

[Brian Ravenhill]

Wasps are escaping punishment for failing to take to the pitch because it’s the referee’s fault.
It now appears that referee David Rose failed to apply the correct protocol when deciding whether or not the pitch was fit to play. The fact that there was no way that Wasps were going to take to field is immaterial.
This all smacks of finding a scapegoat.
The RFU can not be seen to punish Wasps as the then the lawyers will get involved, they cant be seen to punish Sale as it wasn’t really there fault. However somebody has to take the blame for angering 8000 supporters, and thus the referee is the easy target so the RFU blame the ref and themselves (they wont get the lawyers in against themselves) for failure to teach the referee what to do. The referee wont do anything to jeopardise his career, not only is he employed as a referee, but his day job is an RFU adviser within the women’s game, double whammy.
In trying to maintain control of the game each authority has its own set of rules or regulations to cover the game. An international match is governed by the iRB with their set of regulations, the premiership has a different set to cover exactly the same scenarios, the championship a third, levels 3 & 4 a fourth, the next stage down a fifth, then when it gets to level 8 and controlled by the counties a sixth, then in North Gloucestershire at least, the cup competitions have different regulations for each of the four districts. In some instances the regulations of the competition overrule or contract the rules of the game, as Barking RFC have found out to their cost already this season.
Boxing currently has at least 4 world champions at each weight, is rugby union to follow suit simply because nobody is prepared to give up their historical control over their patch of the playing field?
In the meantime David Rose has the rather of 8000 Sale supporters to cope with, on the plus side his Christmas Card list just got a lot smaller.

 

[Dixie]

Nice rant, Brian. I'd guess this is close to your heart. Fortunately, as no-one is ever going to let me anywhere near the National panel, I only have the small-scall stuff to worry about. At my level, if one side doesn't want to play, we don't play.

However, looked at dispassionately, I don't think that any sort of a case could ever have been made against Wasps. They are an employer, and they pulled their employees off their normal jobs because they took the view that the Health & Safety risk was unacceptable. If they'd been fined for protecting their workers from an unsafe environment, it would drive a coach and horses through the H&S field.

Clever play by a reluctant Wasps? Possibly - but as soon as anyone chose to make an issue of it, the moaners were always going to be the losers. Wasps have run rings round an incompetent adversary.

 

[Greg Collins]

The next morning it was decided that the same pitch wasn't safe for a group of coiffed and tanned wendyballers to play on either.

As to our game:

"Ground isn't fit Sir"
"Oh yes it is"
"No Sir it isn't and we aren't playing"
"I'll make you!"
"You and whose army?"

would be an unfitting spectacle at any level from L99 to L1. And my bet is some press hack has assumed that it is down to the referee to decide a la wendyball when as we all should know Law 1 puts that monkey on the Captains/Skippers backs.

 

[Brian Ravenhill]

Greg Wrote "And my bet is some press hack has assumed that it is down to the referee to decide a la wendyball when as we all should know Law 1 puts that monkey on the Captains/Skippers backs.", but that isn't the regulation at premiership level. Which highlights my point about all the different authorities wanting their take on the situation.

 

[Dixie]

Correct, Brian. And at some point, we will see a court case indicating that the premiership regulation, being in conflict with both the iRB laws of the game and the prevailing European law on health and safety, must be set aside in the interests of justice, fairness and employee safety. It's just a question of when it happens.

The question of the amount of damages, with Premiership rugby being liable to the aggrieved party, will be interesting. How much is a place in the Heineken Cup worth?

 

[ex-lucy]

can you explain why it is Rose's fault? .. i am confused

 

[Wert Twacky]

I'm with ex-Lucy, who the heck is blaming David Rose??

Confused of Zummerzet...

 

[Davet]

The RFU has blamed Rose.

The Premiership regs state that (words to the effect of) in case of doubt about the pitch being fit to play the refs decision is final.

They say that Rose did not communicate this to Wasps, and that if he had been forceful that in his opinion the pitch was fit then Wasps refusal to play would have violated the regulation about fulfilling fixtures except if good reason.

They also blame themselves for training refs about this.

It does NOT apply at our level (nor even, I think, at KML1's), since it is a Premiership regulation. At lower levels then if one team feel it is unsafe then the ref cannot make them.

 

[Greg Collins]

prem regs apparently overrule irb law 1 and say ref decides if ground is fit or no and his decision final. seems dave rose went with law 1 and wasps claim had they been told as per regs match was on then they would have played. yeah right.

clearly we not only peeps confused

 

[OB..]

prem regs apparently overrule irb law 1 and say ref decides if ground is fit or no and his decision final. seems dave rose went with law 1 and wasps claim had they been told as per regs match was on then they would have played. yeah right.

clearly we not only peeps confused

Law 1.6 (b) The referee will attempt to resolve the issues but must not start a match if any part of the ground is considered to be dangerous.
It does not say who does the considering, but the implication is that it is for the referee to judge. David Rose though the pitch was playable.

However the law does NOT say he can force a team to play if they disagree - it is the RFU regulation which says that. Rose phoned Campsall to check and was told he could not insist. (As Davet says, at our level we can't.)

Apparently Sale did not know the regulation either.

So it was a big muddle. Nothing new there, then. And of course everybody feels the need to pin the blame on somebody else. Headlines lack subtlety.

 

[beckett50]

This is a can of worms and does to a degree smack of the RFU looking for a scapegoat.

I remember asking a Premiership ref about the cameramen and such like on the environs of the pitch. The response was along the lines of there are other people more qualified in H&S that are paid to make those decisions.

Begs the question, then, why the decision as to whether a pitch is playable is down to the Ref - albeit in contravention of Law 1:swet:

 

[OB..]

This is a can of worms and does to a degree smack of the RFU looking for a scapegoat.

The RFU is correct that David Rose did not know the relevant regulation. Neither did his boss, and neither did Sale.

Begs the question, then, why the decision as to whether a pitch is playable is down to the Ref - albeit in contravention of Law 1:swet:

In what way does it contravene Law 1.6?