Ex-All Blacks slam overuse of TMOs that’s putting ‘people asleep’ as prop highlights hypocrisy
British and Irish Lions' Tadhg Beirne speaks to referee Paul Williams and an inset of Wallabies great Jeff Wilson.
Four former All Blacks have hit out at the time-consuming and overuse of the TMO at the highest level and have called on World Rugby to make tweaks.
This comes after the fourth official was used regularly across the weekend of international rugby from the British and Irish Lions clash with the Waratahs, right through to Sunday’s match between the Wallabies and Fiji.
TMO putting fans to sleep
The quartet discussed the merits of the Television Match Official on Sky Sports’ Breakdown programme and the time it is taking to get to a final decision with viewers asked to provide their views through a poll.
“You can’t ignore the TMO because they’re everywhere right now and we did anticipate this,” legendary winger Jeff Wilson said at the start of the debate.
“We talked about it over the last couple of weeks on the show that it’s different to Super Rugby in the international game and the way World Rugby wants it adjudicated.
“The fact that there are two men upstairs, one looking for particular plays and the other looking for foul play, means there are now five sets of eyes and we saw this weekend. The fact that when you’re looking at something eight times [Tom Wright’s pass in the build-up to a disallowed try], they looked at this eight times to decide this is a forward pass.”
Former All Blacks fly-half Stephen Donald interjected to say that the repeated viewings just bore the viewers and that the time spent re-watching the same action just sucks the air out of the game.
“As soon as you get to three or four [replays] for me, it’s game over because we’ll just go with what the referee and on-field assistants have seen,” he said.
“What’s eight versus five versus six going to determine? All it’s going to do is put people asleep on their couches at home.
“It’s either we’re getting referred from upstairs – which is fine if they can do it in live time like I think we saw some knock ons yesterday maybe two phases late that’s fine if we can do it that quick then so be it – but it’s the committee meetings of the three on field and talking to the guy upstairs and then looking at big screens, which just takes all the air out of the game.”
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Importance of the fourth official
At this point, Wilson referred to the viewers’ opinion on the decision with two-thirds suggesting that the TMO should only be used in the case of foul play.
However, the former All Black was quick to remind those voters that New Zealand were knocked out of the 2007 Rugby World Cup by France because of a forward pass that was missed by the on-field officials.
“I think it’s we’ve got to be very, very careful here,” he warned. “Because you can almost trace this back to 2007 when a forward pass in a Rugby World Cup knocked the All Blacks out.
“The clear and obvious, that’s the most important thing if you start talking about this – 20% thinking foul play and knock-ons [votes] – but I do think it’s important when games are so very tight, that if it is clear-and-obvious, you can’t ignore it.
Angus Ta’avao, who represented the All Blacks at the 2023 Rugby World Cup, pointed to the fact that the TMO’s power has been an ongoing issue in the game but said that a balance needs to be struck.
He also pointed to the hypocrisy that World Rugby are trying to speed up the game by putting the scrums and lineouts on a shot clock and removed the scrum option from a free-kick in order to achieve that, but allow such long delays for TMO reviews.
“This has been a debate for as long as I’ve been playing, we went from there’s not enough of it, to captain’s challenges, to way too much TMO,” he remarked.
“We’ve got to find this middle ground where it’s smart.
“If you’re talking about a TMO comes in, that should just be the call for knock-on, and if there’s a bit of interpretation in there, you don’t need to spend 2 minutes and 27 seconds to review something.
“We are taking away scrums and mauls because the game’s slow, but we’ve got TMOs going for almost 3 minutes – time to get up and grab a fresh cold one. You don’t need that in a game of rugby. You want it to be sped up.”
Referee frustration
Ex-All Blacks and Chiefs’ fly-half Aaron Cruden, agreed and believes that the on-field referees are getting frustrated too: “It’s all a little bit contradictory to me because as we said, we want the game to be fast and we’re trying to speed it up in certain areas, but then when the TMO comes in at the moment, it seems to suck all the enjoyment out of it for the viewers.
“You could clearly see at times too that Nic Berry was visibly frustrated when the TMO said, ‘We got to check this’ because referees want the game to flow as well.
“So whether it’s a lack of alignment somewhere but there needs to be some tweaking of this somewhere to get us what we want.”
Wilson highlighted two TMO reviews in conclusion and reserved praise for New Zealand referee Paul Williams’ decision not to be talked into disallowing a try for the Waratahs against the Lions.
“I do want to shout out to Paul Williams because he took control of the game last night for the Waratahs, where the TMO was adamant he wanted to go back for foul play, and there are so many contestable parts of the game. It wasn’t for that there. It was for this cleanout [on Mack Hansen],” he said.
“How many times do you see that collision in a game? And I think we’ve got to be very, very careful that when you start looking at simple motions or simple things that are common in the game… the fact that he stuck to his guns.
“He wasn’t talked into the fact that it might have been an element of foul play, but there were a number of things to me if they’re consistent in the game, they have to be consistent across the park.”
But he was less impressed by the All Blacks’ try that was disallowed against France for obstruction.
“The obstruction called for the All Blacks. Now, that obstruction happens so many times in the game, but doesn’t get caught until a try is scored,” he continued.
“The screaming at line-out time when the two lifters come and scream, but that happens 50 meters out, doesn’t get penalised. You have to be consistent across the ground.
“Look, there were some outstanding reasons to bring in the TMO sometimes.”
