Thanks you two - I have been waiting for this thread for ages!
Let's play a game of pretend, shall we?
You, dear reader, are to pretend you are in charge of an elite sporting competition which spans 3 different nations and has, say, 14 provincial sides playing each other.
You have a pool of officials to appoint to each match in this competition. These officials have a ranking system, so you have an idea whom is near the top of the rankings and whom is near the bottom.
With me so far? Great!
Now, mid-way through the season, you have a match between a team who has yet to be beaten and are atop the log, as they say in South Africa, and a team who has yet to either win a game or even register a single bonus point for their efforts to date. They are, therefore, stone cold, motherless last on the same log.
Now the $64 question to you, the person in charge of the competition:
Under what circumstances would you even consider appointing an official near the top of the rankings for this game?
No?
Can't think of any?
Need more time?
Still no?
Wake up people. The
game against the Lions will be more likely to have an official up the top end of the rankings than tonight's game. Two teams in the top half of the comp playing each other will get the really top-ranked refs and then it filters down based on the ranking of the game relative to others in that round. If 1 plays 2 between now and the end of the season, you will see who SANZAR/iRB is ranking at the top.
Now; back to the comments that start this post: The ref let through those Bulls tries, did he? The ref failed to organise the
defence when a man down to prevent the glaringly obvious overlap/extra man, did he? The ref made the decisions throughout the game as to when and where the
should play/kick/run, did he?
Did either of you listen to the Matfield interview after the game? How he mentioned they figured the ref out in the first half and adjusted their play in the second? Is that a skill that only players/coaches from the one team has? Is that something that a supporter should also consider when supporting their team?
I would completely understand your comments if the Bulls won by less that 3 points by a dodgy decision in the last moments of the match, but that didn't happen in the game I saw.
Maybe try opening up the other eye for a while, see how that goes.