WALK WITH A LIMP UNLESS YOU FANCY A TASTE OF THE ACTION

The strategy if you don’t fancy playing an active role in the middle

French referee Matthew Raynal had to leave the action of Sale v Munster in the opening round of the European Champions Cup with less than twenty minutes played, having sustained a leg injury. He was replaced by his senior assistant, the appointed number four moved up to replace him on the line and the fifth official took up his responsibilities. It all worked very seamlessly, nor, as sometimes happens at lower levels, was there a discernible change in the pattern of the game.

A change of referee is a rare occurrence but at this level the appointment of no less than five officials ensures the minimum of fuss. In the Aviva Premiership the contingency clause is almost the same: referee and two assistants are allocated to the match, a fourth official (who would be eminently capable of taking over from the referee) operates the replacement duties on the touchline and a fifth official (not normally RFU panel but local Society member) is on hand to complete the sequence; if the system does need to be activated then usually it is an official from the home club who completes the line of elevation.

In the National Leagues, down as far as National Leagues 2 North and South, there are insufficient resources to provide the luxury of up to five officials but one of the assistant will always be designated as ‘senior,’ ready to take over; after that it will be a call to ‘someone from the crowd’ to take up the flag; if this is not your idea of fun, and make no mistake you will get scant sympathy from the players, then make sure you are already limping along at the game. I didn’t get as far as that pretence several years ago at Waterloo for a Sunday match against Hartlepool Rovers when a rare mistake in the appointments system meant that there was no referee. I turned up for a quiet afternoon and a good grumble at the ref, before kit was summoned from all parts in record time and at 3.00pm off we went; it was not my most sartorially pleasing appearance but a thirty point winning margin for the home side inspired “one of the best games you’ve had here.”

Back to the European Championship, still regarded by many as the Heineken Cup, and a demonstration of how resourceful we can all be when it matters. It is January 2009 and Montauban are at home to Munster in the last of the Group games. Referee Dave Pearson and myself (TMO) travelled via Amsterdam to Toulouse on the Friday evening but the two Assistants, due to arrive via Paris, never made it as the predicted ‘end of the world’ type storms materialised over northern Europe. Greeted by an 8.00am wake up call from Twickenham on the Saturday morning I was first asked “what’s it like?” to which the answer was as above, followed by “can you run touch instead?” As it turned out, the two Assistants remained marooned in Charles De Gaulle airport, another Assistant from the RFU, who had already been on duty on the Friday, was given the call at his holiday home eighty kilometres away, I was promoted to Assistant and the Adviser from Wales doubled as TMO – strangely, he seemed the most nervous of the lot. Oh, and after all that, the game was postponed until the Sunday afternoon!

Happy days and indeed I cannot recall a real crisis where the game has been unable to go ahead. The highest levels are well provided for, even when you are stuck in Toulouse with no planes, trains, roads closed and every obstacle you can think of. It’s a bit like the philosophy of never having to postpone a game as if there was always some divine right for it to go ahead; apart from the France v Ireland fiasco a couple of years ago (also, coincidentally, due to be refereed by Dave Pearson) there have been few alarms.

Meanwhile, we sometimes survive on a wing and a prayer below the National Leagues. Just hope that if the referee does go down, it comes after sixty minutes(the cut off point for a score standing), or that there is an unsuspecting, injury free replacement around and that thirty odd players treat him with due respect.

David Matthews