Casting aside any bias I have, after watching the recent Scotland V Wales 6 Nations match on 09 March 2011, I am utterly exasperated.The refereeing of the match by Craig Joubert was utterly disgraceful. Now, Scotland and Wales did commit a large number of penalties during the match but Joubert was clearly not up to the job.Again, the area of contention was the Scrum, and the breakdown.On the scrum, Joubert was inconsistent, erratic and gave penalties to whichever team he seemed to favor at that particular time.Why he would penalize an attacking teams scrum on an opponents 5m line when the defenders clearly went to ground is beyond me. That it is a game changing decision that Scotland suffered for as a result. In the second half, the same thing happened in the to scrum, and Scotland got the penalty this time. This is the kind of dodgy officiating I am trying to force the IRB to look at.Following the match, Twitter literally exploded with...
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Thanks to the 50 that have so far signed this petition. I know many of us share the same concerns when it comes to the standard of refereeing. Even some former players turned pundits have raised the issue of refereeing in the last few weeks.The target for this petition is 100,000, ambitious, I know, but even if we can get to 1000, it will be a result. And we can show the IRB that we, the fans, are getting frustrated with poor refereeing of matches. It may give the IRB the impetus to take action.If you have friends who love rugby, play rugby coach rubgby and even officiate games, please spread the word. Tell them to sign up, it only takes 30 seconds. It's time the IRB utlized every piece of technology at their disposal to help referees on the field, and it's time that all referees were told by the IRB just exactly what consitutes a penalty, yellow card or free kick.Some of the comments already posted highlight the nature of the modern scrum. Referees can't referee it adequatley...
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Alot of rugby fans feel the same when it comes to dodgy refs. Too many games are being spoiled by poor refereeing. There is no excuse. When we have 4 referees, one which has access to instant replays, there is no reason why Rugby matches should be ruined by an underperforming refs.Refereeing needs to be a collective effort. The key areas that need to be addressed, and are capable of being addressed with the technology we have are;<br>1 - Handling of the scrum2 - Professional fouls3 - Underperforming refereePlease sign this petition so that we can tell the IRB how displeased rugby fans are. Too many games are ruined by the man with the whistle.We Are Rugby, Not Football!
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