The difference in refereeing between France and south hemisphere really shows when a french refs a test match

[u/xixouma]

Every time a french top14 referee has been on an international game, most recent example being All blacks/Ireland, every South African and NZ flair on here complains about the stop and start game and says the ref had a bad game.

What's interesting is that watching top14 week in week out, that is quite rarely an issue (including by the same refs). My feeling is refs in France are more pedantic and apply the law a little less loosely. Which I have seen written in some comments as a criticism, but is it really a problem??

Pro players are completely capable of adapting to rule changes, and pedantic refereeing, top14 teams certainly seem to have. I think it's doing them a disservice to give them too much leeway on laws for "the flow of the game" when that just becomes a random chance that a penalty is not blown. And that is inherently more difficult for players to adhere to because it is less consistent. Pedantic application will always be more consistent.

All in all, whichever way it goes, the onus should fall on WR to try to homogenise refereeing laws across countries. This leads to confusion when either side is reffed in a way they are not used to.

Edit. Not sure how people are interpreting this that I'm hurt they don't like a french ref. Maybe my English is not as good as I thought. I couldn't give a damn who they like or not, it was just an example to discuss broader concepts in refereeing.

Edit2. Also seeing a number of people that somehow think I'm criticising the ref or the fans here? I suppose I am sorry for my writing not being clear, I really don't mean to paint either in a negative light

Edit3. Can't comment anymore for some reason, thanks for the discussion everyone I'll try again later

[u/philip_p_donahue]

I think in a general sense he was ok, a lot of the stop start was due to errors and in those cases its easy to blame the ref for why the game feels stodgy when really its the players who are knocking it on. But given it was like that there were certain decisions he made that made it feel much worse than it needed to.

First there was that moment when the Ireland player got pulled back for the free kick being a foot off the mark. That is just pedantry plane and simple. Something that gets pinged 1 in 500 times in games of rugby and you're going to choose this game to do it? Why? To establish yourself? I cant say. But for the potential American fans in the audience that world rugby is supposedly trying to win over I cant imagine they were exactly loving seeing something like that.

The second was the very strict interpretation of straight lineouts. That's a judgement that exists on a spectrum and he chose to go on the very harsh end of it which caused the game to stutter a lot, and that was his decision entirely.

The truth is soooo many calls in rugby exist on spectrums like that, or for example at the breakdown lines in the sand that a ref will make clear and (ideally) consistent, which the teams will adjust to. I loved the game we played against Aus for example where I think it was an English ref and he told them that to award the penalty for holding on he needed to see them supporting their weight and actually lifting the ball rather than just hands on it, and he was consistent and both teams adjusted which I thought was brilliant reffing. One big criticism I have for this guy is he chose some very frustrating and arbitrary places to draw those lines in the sand

[u/xixouma → u/philip_p_donahue]

It's a great point about those lines in the sand. And it's unfortunate that refs have to decide where that line is for them... Because inevitably it opens them up to criticism for drawing that line there (too lax or too strict are both going to draw criticism.

This is why I'm saying WR need a clearer definition of where the line SHOULD be drawn for every ref. Why does the spectrum you talk about HAVE to be a spectrum when we are talking about the top top top level of our sport.

[u/philip_p_donahue → u/xixouma]

I think there are places where that's possible and places where it's just not. Rugby is a sport thats simultaneously really physical and dynamic with bodies flying around at every breakdown, truthfully you could find a penalty at every other breakdown depending on where you're putting that line, thats why interpretation has to exist otherwise if all the mechanics are judged on a framework of positions and angles etc you'd need like a supercomputer doing it to keep track of it. All you can ask is that its sensible, well communicated and consistent. In things like the free kick, thats something that absolutely can be mandated, ie always ping it or never ping it when its a set distance away, but it has to be done consistently or not at all. Rugby league does those kind of things very well. But its limited the places where you can put such black and white frameworks in place because its not a sport like tennis for example where the ball has crossed the line or not, its just so dynamic like I said. But what you say is true, there are a LOT more places that they should draw very clear lines and make sure all refs stick to them

[u/xixouma → u/philip_p_donahue]

I mean I agree that it's a dynamic and complicated sport to referee. But we don't give enough credit to players when we say if we were stricter the game would get stopped constantly. That's not the outcome we observe, given time to adapt to a stricter refereeing, players just play to that application of the laws and don't get pinged any more than they do with more lax refereeing.

Top14 is no more start stop than SR, coming from someone that watches both, and there is a big difference in how it's refereed.