Former All Blacks coach Graham Henry escaped serious punishment for criticising Super Rugby officials after pleading guilty to a misconduct charge.
rugbyweek
Henry, who is now an Blues assistant coach in Auckland was let off with a reprimand and an agreement to issue a public apology.
Jannie Lubbe, the judicial officer with the Super Rugby governing body SANZAR, said he took into account Henry’s “exemplary record” as a coach for more than 40 years.
Henry was slapped with a misconduct charge after blasting officials following the Blues loss to the Crusaders on May 18.
He was particularly critical of television match official (TMO) Keith Brown after a Blues try was disallowed.
“It was obvious to me. He is probably a blind TMO, is he?”
Henry’s comments breached Sections 8.3 (a) and (e) of the SANZAR Code of Conduct.
Henry also claimed Crusaders prop Wyatt Crockett “got away with murder” at scrum time and accused officials of failing to police the offside line.
Lubbe said Henry had since written to SANZAR and conceded “his remarks and comments were inappropriate”.
In releasing his finding, Mr Lubbe ruled the following, “Immediately after he was advised of the investigation by SANZAR into the alleged breach of the Code of Conduct, Sir Graham wrote to SANZAR and conceded that his remarks and comments were inappropriate and he apologised stating that it was never his intention to offend the officials involved.”
It is important that all involved in the Super Rugby competition should respect, comply and abide by the SANZAR Code of Conduct.
In considering an appropriate sanction in matters like this, the interests of SANZAR must be taken into account.
After careful consideration of the remarks/comments, the immediate reaction and apology, that Sir Graham has never before found himself in a situation like this and his exemplary record as a rugby coach stretching over 40 years, the DJO decided to impose the following sanction which was accepted by Sir Graham:
1) Sir Graham Henry is reprimanded for breach of the SANZAR Code of Conduct and cautioned to refrain from such action in future;
2) He must issue a public apology to SANZAR and the match officials involved.
Well, someone HAS TO speak out about the absolute poor quality of the refereeing, assistant refereeing and dubious TMO calling in 2013!
It’s been a total shambles in 2013 and the officials are a freegin protected specie…
I would like to see a very clear and transparent process where match officials are brought to book PROPERLY, diciplined well, cited, suspended… and chucked to the freegin dogs for that matter…. and not by their own bloody reffing council either…. but rather by a Super Rugby Teams panel.
They think they are untouchable…. and to a large extent they are right.
One can see on the field their impression is that they hold the sway, they rule the game, they are the arrogant jobbos…. and far too often THEY determine the outcome of a match, rather than facilitate the game!
They have too much power… and the ego trips are enormous!
They are a self-serving bunch, in general. They are put in a position of trust… and perceive it rather to be in a position of power.
1 @ grootblousmile:
Hello GBS, I may have this view point because I don’t get to watch as much of the live rugby and so not subject as much to the frustration there seem to be, but for me this is a difficult one as there are some very good refs out there doing a tough job in tough circumstance – constantly under the microscope regarding decisions managing players on the field, continual tinkering with the Laws of the game and then also having to strike the balance between applying the letter of the law versus trying to have a flowing watchable game. You may say that the Laws are there for them to blow to but too many seem to rely on interpretation by the refs and lets be honest a ref who blows always according to letter of the law will come under fire for ruining the game, when in fact its the players who would be the ones contributing to the stop start nature of a game that would follow such officiating. We may also want to be a bit more circumspect towards the refs as whether we like it or not they are far less dispensable than players in that there is a much bigger pool of professional players to chose from than refs I think, if you just keep nailing the refs and throwing them away for a bad day then where would be find any eventually to ref the games. I do agree with your sentiment of not allowing a group associated with our game, in this case the refs, to be in a position where they may perceive themselves to be untouchable, however the tricky bit is how to go about changing that. Also agree that there should be no margin for bad calls by TMO’s, so all the technology available needs to be made available to the TMO in the first place, I read somewhere this weekend an allegation that in one match where I think a TMO had to make a call on whether there was a knock of forward pass in scoring a try that the one TV camera angle that showed after the match conclusively what had happened was apparently not made available at the time by the host broadcaster to the TMO, are you aware if this is true?
2 @ Bullscot:
That “missing camera angle” was in the Stormers previous game against the Rebels, when the extra angle would have revealed a knock by Scott Higginbotham, whereas a dubious penalty try was given because after the knock Martin Bezuidenhout clearly held a player back.
I hear what you say that refs have a tough job, but the thing which pisses one off is that they seemingly get away with bad calls seeing as their own kind gets the chance to protect them and sweep it under the rug.
They need to be scrutinized better… and not by their own panels only!
@ grootblousmile:
Truth is the ref’s want to control ALL aspects of the game, including what should go unpenalised and what not.
No one disputes it’s a difficult game to ref’. I contets that any ref’ could conceivibly award a penalty to ANY of the competing sides at EVERY ruck in a game depending on how he / she sees fit, or what the flavour of the month is.
Conversely, my particular pet hate of being offside at the kick off rarely (if ever) gets penalised. When a player chasing the kick off has a 2-3m start on the ball it makes a MASSIVE differenceto his chance of regaining the ball for his team.
Ref’s seem oblivious to this though.
I did notice though that Naas en kie were highlighting that very offence this weekend. DoubT it’ll have any effect, but at least somebody is prepared to “talk” about it.
Last weekend the TMO’s came under the spotlight big time because of poor decisions. Refs are there to ensure that the game is played within the laws of the game, and while many refs do not stick to the letter of the law, they also need to keep to the spirit of the law. In my opinion, the laws should be simplified, so that both players and refs can play and officiate within the law. However, I believe that the systems in place to govern the performance refs are inadequate, as we seldom hear of a ref being replaced on the elite panel.
@ grootblousmile:
I like your post 1
6 @ superBul:
Hehehe
I like your post 6 too!
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