Rassie Erasmus feels like the most guesswork from referees occurs at scrum time and has pitched an idea to change that.
While Erasmus has been guilty of criticising officials in the past, he and the Springboks have taken a strong stance in recent times to not criticise the referees, but the head coach has suggested an idea to make life easier for the man in the middle.
During the latest episode of Rassie+, Erasmus spoke to former Springboks loosehead prop Steven Kitshoff about the difficulty of understanding what is happening in the scrums, admitting that at times, even he has no idea.
Scrum referee
In a move to get more accurate decisions at the set-piece, Erasmus has floated the idea of a specialised referee to officiate the scrum.
“We’ve made a massive mind shift on respecting the referee and understanding that they can’t always 100% understand a maul or a scrum because the referee may have been a backline player and I sometimes am not sure what happening in the scrum as the head coach,” the former Springboks flanker said.
“What you do think about a scrum referee, if there’s a scrum, it’s an ex-prop who just runs on he referees that scrum, and the moment the balls out, he runs off again?
“So it’s a specialised scrum referee, and people might laugh at this, but I think that’s where the most guessing – if there’s not pure dominance – it’s always this guy folded in or whatever. But what do you think if a prop referee that and he’s just off the field again and the game goes on, don’t you think that could work?”
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Kitshoff’s take
Kitshoff joked that there would need to be two former front rowers in order for it to work “because normally they can’t run 80 meters to get out to the other five-yard line.”
However, he agreed that it is difficult for those who haven’t played in the front row to understand what is happening the scrum and believes the idea could work.
“I think it’s a great idea as a spectator watching a URC game a scrum happens, there’s a penalty being blown and sometimes I’m thinking what’s this ref actually seeing that I’m not seeing or vice versa,” he said.
“Sometimes you just need a guy that’s actually very zoned in with certain movements in a scrum and he’s scrummed there before, I think there is definitely scope for it in rugby.”
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Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/rassie-erasmus-pitches-specialised-referee-idea-to-fix-the-area-where-the-most-guessing-is-done
