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Whistle watch - World Rugby production

S

shebeen

Active member
This is a weekly show that often gets referenced here, so a thread dedicated to it.


Normally there is no highlighting of match official errors, but spotted one getting pinged directly (YC Aus vs SA). James Doleman(NZ) is the unfortunate official who gets singled out for making an error. I would have posted it last week, but it got taken down. The video has returned (but not the tweet).

I do wonder if this is a new direction?
 
I have feelings about this.

The original was taken down because the Social Media Intern gave it a very inflammatory title.

I'm not a fan. If mistakes have been made, the teams will already have been made aware, and certainly the referee will have as well. Giving someone a kicking in public with no right of reply is chickenshit.

I was mulling this over yesterday evening, and NO didn't come out well from my ruminations. It smacks a bit of someone trying to hang on to their social media relevance.
 
SimonSmith said:
I have feelings about this.

The original was taken down because the Social Media Intern gave it a very inflammatory title.
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according to the YT comments, this was the 3rd upload. 1st one had another segment with a fwd pass that must have looked bad. Own goal by WR here.


SimonSmith said:
I'm not a fan. If mistakes have been made, the teams will already have been made aware, and certainly the referee will have as well. Giving someone a kicking in public with no right of reply is chickenshit.
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agreed, especially when it is so selective. We have an incident at a ruck, great how many would you like to put under the microscope to be fair?!


SimonSmith said:
I was mulling this over yesterday evening, and NO didn't come out well from my ruminations. It smacks a bit of someone trying to hang on to their social media relevance.
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It's a difficult one, this is clearly aimed at the public not match officials - he has been good at bridging the gap
 
These videos are endorsed/sanctioned by WR. While I don’t think it is right to hang officials out to dry, within this context I think it is okay to address possible errors. I would assume that such errors or oversights will have been addressed with the referee in the debrief and after match analysis, and this is a way of WR being open to the public that an error was made or an incident missed. As such, this openess should be welcomed as a learning/educating tool. We need more openess about errors so that officiating at lower levels also improves and we have greater consistency.

Regardless of how people feel about NO as a person/ex-referee I believe that WR are using his ability to communicate to get their opinions across to the general public. If they didn’t agree with him then they wouldn’t endorse the videos. Because of this I don’t think he can be personalky attacked for being the person highlighting a mistake or oversight by an official. Blame WR.
 
I'm not a fan of this either.

You're effectively criticizing the official in public and giving every keyboard warrior the opportunity to say - see I told you he/she was shite !

You dont see coaches coming out and showing clips of where players messed up, so why would you do it for the refs.
 
Balones said:
These videos are endorsed/sanctioned by WR. While I don’t think it is right to hang officials out to dry, within this context I think it is okay to address possible errors. I would assume that such errors or oversights will have been addressed with the referee in the debrief and after match analysis, and this is a way of WR being open to the public that an error was made or an incident missed. As such, this openess should be welcomed as a learning/educating tool. We need more openess about errors so that officiating at lower levels also improves and we have greater consistency.

Regardless of how people feel about NO as a person/ex-referee I believe that WR are using his ability to communicate to get their opinions across to the general public. If they didn’t agree with him then they wouldn’t endorse the videos. Because of this I don’t think he can be personalky attacked for being the person highlighting a mistake or oversight by an official. Blame WR.
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It strikes me that if WR, via an ex-referee can hang out a referee, the grounds for criticizing, say, Rassie for doing the same thing are much thinner.
 
I like the idea of a WR feature discussing refereeing matters
(not sure NO is the right person to do it, especially when the discussion turns on law technicalities)

It would be very strange if a regular feature on refereeing issues did not acknowledge reffing mistakes . Mistakes will happen, and will be discussed, they just need to get the tone right .. both in the podcast and also of course in the headlines
 
It is very difficult to accurately hit your target audience (without asking the producers/WR we won’t know in this case) and as such when any type of media is produced you are going to get those that agree/disagree with the content and the format. Some will say this video is inappropriately criticising the official while others could say that it is providing education for the less enlightened. It’s a fine balancing act - and the reason why I have got splinters!:)
 
Balones said:
It is very difficult to accurately hit your target audience (without asking the producers/WR we won’t know in this case) and as such when any type of media is produced you are going to get those that agree/disagree with the content and the format. Some will say this video is inappropriately criticising the official while others could say that it is providing education for the less enlightened. It’s a fine balancing act - and the reason why I have got splinters!:)
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I guess if the critisism is a "!summary " of the referee's feedback following discussin with the referee coach and not a "bolt from the blue" attack it makes some sense bit yes a very fine line. Alos ithere is a massive difference between got wrong and the angle the official got did not tell the whole story.
 
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Dickie E said:
response from NO:

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That's a really good background article. Maybe anecdotal, but I have watched quite a few of these now and I don't remember many where he has definitely said the ref was wrong on the day. I almost thought it was party line to bring in some doubt and not throw the ref under the bus.

Will be interesting to see how easy they go on Karl Dickson this week after the AB/SA game. Despite it being the biggest game of the year, they might floss straight over it.
 
Balones said:
If NO is to be believed, (because I know some on here would not believe or support anything he says) it is a good article outlining what I knew to be the case.
Thanks for posting.
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None of it is his fault, he is just a messenger for WR ...
 
SimonSmith said:
NO believes that heading the ball is a knock on and said as much on his "show"
WR have not amended the law or issued a statement to that effect.
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Which ‘show’ was that? He did mention it in an article three years ago when he was referring to a deliberate heading of the ball. Which, I agree, was incorrect. He emphasised that you can’t throw it up/forward to head the ball, which we, I think, again all agree is ilegal.
Every referee gets a brain fart now and again. (Even this forum is full of them.:)) I think part of the problem is being trigger happy on social media and responding to something without thinking or understanding the full context of something.
 
Balones said:
He emphasised that you can’t throw it up/forward to head the ball, which we, I think, again all agree is ilegal.
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with caveats I dont.

IMO (only) If it is thrown backwards and then headed it hasn't been lost forward. its been propelled forward by a part of the body that isn't covered by kick or throw forward (ie hands) or knock on (ie hands/arms).

I know I am a minority of one here.
 
didds said:
with caveats I dont.

IMO (only) If it is thrown backwards and then headed it hasn't been lost forward. its been propelled forward by a part of the body that isn't covered by kick or throw forward (ie hands) or knock on (ie hands/arms).

I know I am a minority of one here.
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I'm rowing the same boat as you.
 
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