Time to take a leaf from Gridiron?

With all the mumps and grumps, some warranted and some not so, is it time we took some inspiration from the old American oval ball game?

Now first of all, this isn’t a dig at refs, if anything this could help them.

I think it’s high time we brought in specialist refs for aspects of the game. Line outs are a mess with squint throws, jumping over the opposition and contact in the air all going unseen.

The scrums are a joke. Unless you’ve spent years of your life in the front row in scrums, you aren’t going to know what on Earth is going on. Boring in. Not driving straight. Hips below shoulders. Take your pick. Not only are these dark arts difficult to spot, there’s often that much going on that the ref just can spot it all.

Specialist refs are needed. Two specialist refs either side of the scrum. One specialist ref looking at the front of the lineout (I know the ARs are supposed to do that but they just don’t)

It’s unfeasible at low levels but 6ns, whatever NZ call their tournament these days and world cups should all have these extra refs.

I would be happy to give the TMO the power to review set pieces and alert the ref if a decision should be changed, or just to tell them what to look out for at the next one.

Or have more than one ref on the pitch...

2 refs (Main and assistant) and a 2 lines men?

I've long thought that rugby needs a second pair of eyes for the officials, and that they need help in reffing the scrum in particular.

Needs a ref at each side of the scrum, as inevitably if the ref is one side the f**king about happens the other and the ref is left somewhat guessing who was more sinned against and who was sinning.

One ref watching the breakdown, the other watching offside in defence.

dummy_half wrote:I've long thought that rugby needs a second pair of eyes for the officials, and that they need help in reffing the scrum in particular.

Needs a ref at each side of the scrum, as inevitably if the ref is one side the f**king about happens the other and the ref is left somewhat guessing who was more sinned against and who was sinning.

One ref watching the breakdown, the other watching offside in defence.

isn't that the job of the linesman?