Is the TMO killing rugby?

Respected referee Nigel Owens believes that rugby is currently misusing technology and ruining the sport.

Are TMOs killing rugby

Owens felt that the foul bunker flopped during the Rugby World Cup.

He feels that the TMO should not be refereeing matches.

“During the Rugby World Cup, I made no secret of my thoughts on the new TMO bunker,” Owens wrote in his column for Wales Online. 

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“While it certainly showed how it can help to speed up games, it hardly reduced controversies or improved decision-making during the tournament and, in my opinion, ended up being used too much when the decisions should have been made by the on-field referees.

“At the moment, it feels like the TMO is refereeing matches and that is not a road that rugby should be going down.

“While technology has its place in the game, how it is used currently needs to change.”

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Scrums are a mess

Owens believes that the scrum is currently not being refereed correctly at all. He points to the absolutely ludicrous scrum feeds that are now commonplace in the game.

Referees are focused on getting the scrums done with and penalising a side when it goes down.

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“I know it’s a cliche but how scrum-halves are feeding into the scrum is worse than ever at the moment,” Nigel Owens wrote.

“In the past, it wasn’t really ever straight and I was probably as guilty of letting it slide as anybody else at the time, but now it is beyond a joke. Most scrum-halves may as well put it straight under the No.8’s feet.

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“Too many scrums are not being refereed at the moment .Too many refs are playing on when the scrum is down and not dealing with the issues behind it, and the problem then just continues over and over again.

“They simply need to be stronger – if they can be stronger in refereeing it and in dealing with the negative scrummagers, then we will see much more of a contest at scrum time.”

Nigel Owens bemoans lax breakdown reffing

Owens also believes that the ruck and tackle breakdown area needs stronger officiating as well.

“It’s all there in the laws of the game, but it just needs to be refereed better,” Nigel Owens said. 

“You can’t deliberately collapse a ruck and players arriving at the ruck should be arriving on their feet and not diving off them.

“I’m not saying that everybody on the ground needs to be penalised, but certainly I think it’s an area of the game we need to improve on.

“If we get more players on their feet contesting the ruck then we have more space in midfield for the players to attack. This will also reduce the amount of dangerous clearouts around the dead ruck areas, when piles of bodies are on the ground.

“What we saw during the World Cup was several incidents of a player coming in to jackal the ball and an opposition player coming in to try and clear him out but then just pulling him off his feet into the ground.

“The player is then penalised for doing nothing wrong and we’re just left with a big pile of bodies and a total mess.”