Brave new era of high-speed rugby is here, but can referees deliver it?

The pressure is on Luke Pearce. The Pontypool-born RFU referee takes charge of the first match in this season’s Rugby Championship. Australia face the back-to back-world champions South Africa in Brisbane. In the build-up to the fixture, Pearce has attracted comments from South Africa’s controversial supremo Rassie Erasmus.
But his pre-match comments are a little different this time. The South Africa head coach is putting the pressure on Pearce with praise. To summarise the verbal skirmish, the Australia head coach, Joe Schmidt, suggested this week that refereeing calls tend to go the way of the Springboks. In the scheme of head coach comments it was fairly innocuous; a gentle prompt for the man in the middle to prove himself his own man.
Erasmus, of course, disputed the claim. Disputed, then dismissed Schmidt’s words. He said: “It’s [Schmidt’s comments] not going to work with Luke Pearce. He is an experienced referee. He is not going to fall for something like that.”
It’s a neat little trick. By emphasising the referee’s experience in the face of what was said, he has placed the pressure on Pearce not to penalise South Africa, while making nothing but positive statements regarding the referee. With a bit of luck, the official will have avoided the papers and online features and will officiate with his usual degree of authority and flexibility. He is one of the best referees in the world and he may very well need to be.
The pre-match verbals are part and parcel of the whistler’s world but refereeing within Sanzaar’s (South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina Rugby, the body that oversees Super Rugby and the Rugby Championship) new set of variations could test the Englishman. The referee no longer has merely to enforce the laws of the game, he must also play a central role in changing the game itself.
The rationale is to “speed up the game, reduce the amount of unnecessary stoppages and to clarify law interpretations”. The headlines are centred on the “20-minute” red card. Deliberate/high-level-of-danger acts are still red-card offences, with 14 players left on the field, as occurred with New Zealand in the World Cup final when Sam Cane, their skipper, was sent off.
That offence, like Bath’s Beno Obano in the Gallagher Premiership final against Northampton Saints, was not deemed deliberate. However, the high level of danger fitted into the red-card threshold. Red cards for unintentional acts are designed to discourage players and coaches from dangerous play but too often they are sending-off offences in nothing but the wording of the law. In this instance the law metamorphoses into an ass. Health, safety and entertainment top Sanzaar’s list of priorities.
Players can now be “sent off” for unintentional but dangerous play. The recipient of the red card will remain off the field but a replacement is allowed after 20 minutes. The individual, not the team — or the fans — is principally penalised. This system has been in place for four years in Super Pacific Rugby. Few seem to think that the 20-minute spell down to 14 men is long enough, even though it represents a full quarter of the match. Yellow cards remain part of the package; the referee must not regard the 20-minute red card as a safety net, avoiding the big calls.
Pearce will be aware that he is an instrumental part of a process leading to a ten-minute, 20-minute or rest-of-the-game punishment. The rugby world will be focused on any headline decisions by the referee or television match official. Yet arguably the laws designed to speed up the game are at least as significant.
In Australia, the spectacle that is Test rugby can be improved by speeding up the game, which can draw both players and supporters into union and away from league. The shot clock, dramatically seen in the World Cup with Owen Farrell running out of time, comes into its own. There is no argument that, with 90 seconds allowed, kicks for goal and restarts have taken too much time. Bringing the limit to 60 seconds is sound.
But the 30-second limit in which to set scrums and lineouts is controversial, especially the scrum. Say Australia field a pair of rookie props against one of the world’s great scrummaging teams. One that uses a 6-2 bench split to play power rugby. The Wallabies can neutralise that by failing to set within the time limit. The new laws do not enable a dominant scrum to reset and force a penalty. Instead the only option is a tapped free kick. There is endless room for cynicism at the scrum. The referee has to think of early yellow cards and perhaps even one of the red variety if Australia — as some expect they will — bend the new law.
South Africa can play at pace. With Tony Brown, a former All Black fly half and coaching guru with the Highlanders and Japan, Erasmus is expanding their much underrated attacking game further but the Springboks have always had the weapon of pure power up front, allied with control at half back.
Erasmus is most concerned with an existing law that the world authorities want reinforced. The five-second “Use it” law at the base of the scrum/ruck/maul is central to South African kicking. Against a nation like Australia, renowned for their attacking rugby, the world champions have been known to drop the gear of the game.
But that is not a central part of the improved spectacle. It is, though, a bona fide part of the process that makes rugby union such a varied game of intrigue. Sanzaar’s speedy alternative leaves men like Pearce with unenviable tasks at Test level.
The men charged with running the sport in the southern hemisphere are hoping Saturday’s match in Brisbane will be the start of a brave new world. Luke Pearce has the gigantic task of ushering in the beautiful south to the rest of the world.