Cape Town — While he hopes that Tappe Henning will be a valuable sounding board for referees and coaches in the United Rugby Championship, Jake White wants his Bulls to sort things out on the field in Saturday’s clash against Munster at Loftus Versfeld (4.05pm kickoff).
The four South African teams have all been affected by some questionable decisions from northern-hemisphere officials at some stage during the tournament, with the Stormers the latest ‘victims’ in their 19-17 loss to Connacht in Galway a fortnight ago.
One of the main gripes from the Bulls was the lack of reward in the scrums and driving mauls when they were on tour in Europe last October. White said at the time that he was hoping that his team would receive more penalties for their set-piece dominance, but it seldom turned out that way, with the play allowed to continue despite clear infringements from the opposition.
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But now that Henning – a former South African Test referee – has been appointed as the URC referees manager, a platform has been created for the teams to voice their unhappiness after each match, if required.
“All coaches are allowed to get involved with him and interact with him, which is no different to how it’s been before. We’ve had Ben Whitehouse (from Wales, who will handle the Bulls-Munster match) before – he reffed us against Edinburgh – so it’s nice that we’ve got a bit of a channel to send some stuff through, and there has been a lot of talk about what Tappe’s doing: to make sure that there’s consistency in the URC,” White said on Friday.
“That’s all we want – that there’s consistency in terms of the way the refs ref, not only between countries, but individually. One week a ref blows a certain thing, and then the next, the same referee blows a different way. We are trying really hard to get consistency.
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“Whatever the referee wants to blow and whatever picture they see in front of them, whether home or away, foreign referee or local referee, we’ve got to make sure we get the same sort of feedback.”
But while some of the decisions from the referees have been difficult to understand – the way in which Connacht players were allowed to come in from the side when the Stormers maul was going forward was blatant – the South African teams should try to respond during the game instead of complaining afterwards, when they have already lost.
That is what White hopes to see from Marcell Coetzee’s team against Munster, who will have Springbok star Damian de Allende returning from an abdomen injury via the bench.
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“Hundred percent – that’s exactly the challenge. If we are going to get boundaries, and it’s going to get blown quickly and the boundaries are going to be shown by the referee… If you’re good enough, the great players have been able to do it,” the Bulls director of rugby said.
“The Richie McCaws, Schalk Burgers, the George Smiths, they have said ‘Right, I either get away with it, or I don’t’. If you get away with it, you keep doing it – if you don’t get away with it, you can’t then keep trying to find a way in which you try to convince the referee about how you want to get away with it.
“That’s part of the coaching… It’s not going to happen straight away, it’s going to take time. We’ve still got a relatively young – I’m talking age-wise and experience-wise – and hopefully as we grow as a team, Munster is another opportunity for us to see where we are in our development.
“I am hoping that we will be good enough to adapt and understand what we need to do tomorrow to play well.”
IOL Sport