FraserWords

RULES is rules. I can feel weasel words like ‘appropriate’ lurking.

Of course, the first thing I did on Sunday, the very first thing after Scotland were so unjustly denied their rightful victory over Australia in the rugby World Cup quarter final, was pick up the phone and start dialling Art’s number… For the first time, he had nothing to say, I’m afraid.

What a match. And what a total shambles referee Craig Joubert made of it. Of course, the crucial penalty that wasn’t a penalty was a freak. You don’t often see a mistake decide an important game. Do you?

Over in the Middle East, England won the first test against Pakistan, only they didn’t because the rules said they had to come off for bad light within 25 runs of victory. The light was perfectly playable, nobody was in any danger and Pakistan had been using delaying tactics. But rules is rules.

The penalty that won Australia the game against Scotland was not a penalty, everybody in the ground and watching on TV could see that, but Joubert was not brave or sensible enough to change his mind after a big screen playback showed his error. Rules is rules. No wonder he ran for the changing room afterwards.

Isolated incidents? No. We’ve seen the bad light conundrum deny England at cricket before, and the last time France beat New Zealand in a World Cup quarter final, in 2007, they did so with the aid of a forward pass spotted by everybody but the ref. We all saw Frank Lampard score for England in South Africa, apart from the officials. I think it was the first use of a television official in an England against Australia international which gave England the winning score on a mistaken call.

Rugby, more than any other top sport, is totally prey to its referees: a penalty could be given for any reason at any time at scrums, for example – remember the 2003 world cup in which England were inexplicably penalised time and again at the scrums. In fact, there are rugby officials who, you know, will kill any game. I’ve decided not to watch matches because I know the chosen referee will ruin it.

Of course glorious uncertainty makes sport so rich. Mistakes happen. It’s only a game. All of which is right. But all of which is no comfort at all for a Scotland supporter this week.

As in every field, we need common sense. We need people with the guts to look at the big screen and say ‘hang on, that decision wasn’t right.’ Nobody thinks Craig Joubert made his mistake deliberately or with malice, but I do think he reacted to that mistake with great cowardice. And sport’s administrators, coming up with their appropriate rules, are at fault for not empowering officials to use common sense when the situation demands – there are four of them on duty at a rugby international and they should have been empowered to review.

Sunday’s situation was extraordinary; it called for men brave enough to hold up the game and strong enough to talk about the right decision and gutsy enough to make the right decision. It got cowards.

Joubert, presumably panicking, underlined the act of cowardice by running from the pitch straight afterwards, not even giving the Scotland players the chance to refuse to shake his hand.

And distressingly, neither the tournament organisers nor Australia have had the decency or courage to say at least a ‘sorry’ to Scotland. What would have been one of the greatest wins in the history of the tournament was ruined by error; that error and the offence caused has been compounded by cowardice and insensitivity.

Nobody will ever get everything right. But everybody should be given every possible chance to do so.

Top-level rugby used to be an intelligent game, a decent game, a brave game. It has become top-level soccer, and there can be no greater condemnation than that.

Growing up

I didn’t really go into politics when I wrote about the death of dear Captain Kay last week, but I must just mention something he said which really struck a chord in me – because, as any socialist knows, you spend your life listening to Daily Mail readers and solemn wealthy pensioners telling you they were left wing once but ‘grew out of it’.

Well, I haven’t grown out of it and neither have my closest friends and neither did Arthur, at 85.

He said it was because he came from a generation of people who knew the people who said ‘idealism’s for children, don’t be so naïve’ were wrong, because his generation had shown it to be wrong.

They’d shown that idealism, a child-like faith in achieving better than selfishness and greed for the human race, could be achieved, and he wanted to believe it could be so again.

He was worried that this country had permitted too much of what he and his friends had made – decent working conditions, a national free health service, education as a means of delivering opportunity equally to all – to be broken, and certainly he viewed Cameron, Osborne and their like as pygmies. As so he should: they were not fit to lick the callouses on his feet.

Art maintained people ‘grew out’ of socialism, of a belief in commonality, in decent ideals, the very moment they decided they had so many possessions they wanted to make sure they kept them, added to them, even at the cost of denying opportunity to others. Thank the Crab he never grew up; I hope I don’t.

 

RULES is rules. I can feel weasel words like ‘appropriate’ lurking.

Of course, the first thing I did on Sunday, the very first thing after Scotland were so unjustly denied their rightful victory over Australia in the rugby World Cup quarter final, was pick up the phone and start dialling Art’s number… For the first time, he had nothing to say, I’m afraid.

What a match. And what a total shambles referee Craig Joubert made of it. Of course, the crucial penalty that wasn’t a penalty was a freak. You don’t often see a mistake decide an important game. Do you?

Over in the Middle East, England won the first test against Pakistan, only they didn’t because the rules said they had to come off for bad light within 25 runs of victory. The light was perfectly playable, nobody was in any danger and Pakistan had been using delaying tactics. But rules is rules.

The penalty that won Australia the game against Scotland was not a penalty, everybody in the ground and watching on TV could see that, but Joubert was not brave or sensible enough to change his mind after a big screen playback showed his error. Rules is rules. No wonder he ran for the changing room afterwards.

Isolated incidents? No. We’ve seen the bad light conundrum deny England at cricket before, and the last time France beat New Zealand in a World Cup quarter final, in 2007, they did so with the aid of a forward pass spotted by everybody but the ref. We all saw Frank Lampard score for England in South Africa, apart from the officials. I think it was the first use of a television official in an England against Australia international which gave England the winning score on a mistaken call.

Rugby, more than any other top sport, is totally prey to its referees: a penalty could be given for any reason at any time at scrums, for example – remember the 2003 world cup in which England were inexplicably penalised time and again at the scrums. In fact, there are rugby officials who, you know, will kill any game. I’ve decided not to watch matches because I know the chosen referee will ruin it.

Of course glorious uncertainty makes sport so rich. Mistakes happen. It’s only a game. All of which is right. But all of which is no comfort at all for a Scotland supporter this week.

As in every field, we need common sense. We need people with the guts to look at the big screen and say ‘hang on, that decision wasn’t right.’ Nobody thinks Craig Joubert made his mistake deliberately or with malice, but I do think he reacted to that mistake with great cowardice. And sport’s administrators, coming up with their appropriate rules, are at fault for not empowering officials to use common sense when the situation demands – there are four of them on duty at a rugby international and they should have been empowered to review.

Sunday’s situation was extraordinary; it called for men brave enough to hold up the game and strong enough to talk about the right decision and gutsy enough to make the right decision. It got cowards.

Joubert, presumably panicking, underlined the act of cowardice by running from the pitch straight afterwards, not even giving the Scotland players the chance to refuse to shake his hand.

And distressingly, neither the tournament organisers nor Australia have had the decency or courage to say at least a ‘sorry’ to Scotland. What would have been one of the greatest wins in the history of the tournament was ruined by error; that error and the offence caused has been compounded by cowardice and insensitivity.

Nobody will ever get everything right. But everybody should be given every possible chance to do so.

Top-level rugby used to be an intelligent game, a decent game, a brave game. It has become top-level soccer, and there can be no greater condemnation than that.

Growing up

I didn’t really go into politics when I wrote about the death of dear Captain Kay last week, but I must just mention something he said which really struck a chord in me – because, as any socialist knows, you spend your life listening to Daily Mail readers and solemn wealthy pensioners telling you they were left wing once but ‘grew out of it’.

Well, I haven’t grown out of it and neither have my closest friends and neither did Arthur, at 85.

He said it was because he came from a generation of people who knew the people who said ‘idealism’s for children, don’t be so naïve’ were wrong, because his generation had shown it to be wrong.

They’d shown that idealism, a child-like faith in achieving better than selfishness and greed for the human race, could be achieved, and he wanted to believe it could be so again.

He was worried that this country had permitted too much of what he and his friends had made – decent working conditions, a national free health service, education as a means of delivering opportunity equally to all – to be broken, and certainly he viewed Cameron, Osborne and their like as pygmies. As so he should: they were not fit to lick the callouses on his feet.

Art maintained people ‘grew out’ of socialism, of a belief in commonality, in decent ideals, the very moment they decided they had so many possessions they wanted to make sure they kept them, added to them, even at the cost of denying opportunity to others. Thank the Crab he never grew up; I hope I don’t.