Room 101: Sean Holley – Bristol’s head coach

1. Lateness
I hate being late for anything and believe everyone else should feel the same. Sadly unpunctuality is a far too regular an occurrence in my life from players not turning up on time for team meetings, the bus driver being late to take us to games, to my wife taking too long to get ready to go out. To me not being punctual, especially with no explanation, shows a lack of courtesy. In a previous job one staff member was consistently late by exactly seven minutes without offering any form of apology. If you can get being late down to an art form like that why is being on time so difficult? You don’t see players being late for kick off, so why should they get away with it in their preparation during the week?
TRP verdict:  Time waits for no man; get in Room 101 quick sharp.
2. ‘Offside referees’
We’ve all been there…sitting next to the supposed ‘know-it-all’ supporter in the stands, putting up with a running commentary and shouts of ‘offside ref’, ‘he’s on his feet’, every time ref, every time’. Give me a break! Normally the person in question doesn’t know the laws of the game and is questioning decisions that, nine times out of ten, are being made correctly by the referee. It particularly kills me when he turns to his mate or partner to try and explain what’s going on. The most recent example I can think of was at the Heineken Cup Final, when I was sat next to an Irishman who thought he was the world’s leading authority on the teams, the players, the game plan…everything. He moaned as the Clermont fans chanted and clapped their kicker, Morgan Parra, as he kicked for goal – a cultural thing – arguing that the crowd should stay silent out of respect like they do in Ireland. By then, I’d had too much and cracked. I turned to him and called him a hypocrite, stating that the Irish crowd booed and jeered Leigh Halfpenny’s match-winning kick at the Aviva Stadium during the 2011 Grand Slam. He kept quiet after that!
TRP verdict:  Ban that fan from the stand! You’re in.
3. Reset scrums
I’m a big advocate of the scrum: at school I was taught by the late John Bevan that “the scrum is king”. However, I hate the fact that so much time is lost in a game to reset scrums. It’s got to the point now where teams will use a series of resets to run the clock down. The referee or timekeeper should have the ability to stop the clock to prevent this from happening. For international matches the ball is in play for around 40 minutes. As a result, the paying public and TV audience are being short-changed.
TRP verdict:  Resets are one big heap of misery. Congratulations, that’s 3 out of 3.