AT LAST, someone agrees with me. Colin Boag is 100 per cent right – referees are taking away the advantage by coaching for the whole 80 minutes.
I refereed for 25 years and we were told to set the standard in the first ten minutes. I also coached for a top level team, and all the players back then knew the laws backwards, in fact for their position betters than the refs.
The trouble is that very few of the referees have played as a forward or in the front row, that’s why the scrum is a disaster, and I still maintain that the scrum is easy to control.
I gave the seat up at Twicke...