To have one referee on staff may be considered sensible. To have two – could that be excessive?
France’s professional clubs have hired referees as coaches for a few years now, following in the footsteps of the national side which moved quickly to bring Jerome Garces into the set-up when he set aside his whistle as a top-tier official.
Garces’s role, unsurprisingly, is to work on player discipline, to help them understand what referees are watching for. He has cut France’s card and penalty count – they shipped just four against New Zealand in the World Cup opener, when they played well, and 1...