Loose Pass: Praise for Ben O’Keeffe and the dawn of doomsday as legal battle reaches High Court

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with the official complaint and the dawn of doomsday…

A shame for the game

Loose Pass will happily debate an official’s decision, happily be corrected on points of law, happily tell an official he saw it differently, happily talk laws, rules, interpretations and incidents until the cows come home.

And so there he sat, pencil poised and pad at the ready, all set to take apart any minutiae arising from the Super Rugby Pacific final.

There were perhaps a couple of calls seen differently, certainly a couple of raised eyebrows at one or two body positions and movements of cleaners coming into rucks. The bizarre call to allow both Anton Lienert-Brown and Dallas McLeod to continue playing will be a benchmark incident for head injury advocates to refer to for a long time to come – that really was a mistake by all. Unfortunately for Loose Pass, that incident has been comprehensively dealt with elsewhere on this site.

Yet surely there must be something? After all, all those boos at the end of the game, all that shouting and vitriol directed at the officials; there must have been a moment of skulduggery, an act of foul play, a penalty that should have been a scrum, surely something must have raised those hackles so far?

Loose Pass couldn’t find it. In fact, with the possible exception of Tual Trainini’s magnificent performance at last week’s Top 14 final, Ben O’Keeffe‘s officiating of the Super Rugby Pacific final was well up there for one of the best of the year – and the call on Lienert-Brown was, under the protocols to be followed in Super Rugby, not necessarily Mr O’Keeffe’s to make.

Chiefs fly-half Damian McKenzie was very clearly not 10 metres – he was barely five – when he moved to intercept for what could have been a killer try. Sam Cane’s decision to go for a steal in that position with eight minutes to go was asinine. The second yellow card was harsh in isolation, but it wasn’t in isolation, it had very obviously been coming.

It was thus a real shame that Mr. O’Keeffe received enough abuse for his display that he felt compelled to address just how much of the frustration from so-called fans he had had to absorb post-match, not just the boos on the field but also the usual shower of bile on the ubiquitous social media channels, including some ugly death threats.

🇳🇿 New Zealand Rugby issues statement on Ben O'Keeffe abuse. https://t.co/c6GxKEN3gJ

— Planet Rugby (@PlanetRugby) June 26, 2023

Mr. O’Keeffe’s most pertinent sentence was this: “I hope my family is never subjected to (the abuse soccer referee Anthony Taylor received in an airport) but the direction some fans are going now in rugby, I know we are closer than we have ever been.” Unfortunately, considering a number of similar problems with concerning rugby referees this past 12 months, it’s hard to disagree.

We are 10 weeks out from a World Cup that promises to be better than any ever. Players are faster, fitter and more skilful than ever before. We have a panel of international referees of enough depth that there are some really excellent referees not getting a look in for the World Cup. So much about what goes on on the pitch has improved over the past couple of years. Mr. O’Keeffe has issued a challenge to all of us now: let’s see if we can all be better off it too.

The clock begins to tick

After all, for how long will rugby continue as we know it? The legal claim brought by a number of players which has now grown to over 200 against three of the sport’s governing bodies, for an alleged failure to take reasonable steps to prevent head injuries caused by repeated blows, has begun in London’s high court.

It may not be successful. But it is widely believed to be an existential threat to the game. Faster, fitter, bigger players and better strategic coaching have led the number of collisions during games to treble or quadruple in both number and intensity and if it can be shown that governing bodies have failed to address the problems of increased concussion rates or increased risks of concussion and related brain injuries, the potential damages would stretch the game’s finances to an ugly point, and that in an ugly financial environment generally.

In that light, the biggest mistake of the weekend was not just the decision to exclude Lienert-Brown from the rest of the game, it was the decision by all stakeholding observers to allow McLeod to continue playing.

READ MORE: Experienced All Black set to miss most of the Rugby Championship