Take TMOs seriously? That’s up to you…
BRENTFORD, ENGLAND - MARCH 27: Referee, Craig Maxwell-Keys talks to the TMO prior to giving Tom Dunn of Bath a red card for a high elbow during the Gallagher Premiership Rugby match between London Irish and Bath at Brentford Community Stadium on March 27, 2021 in Brentford, England. Sporting stadiums around the UK remain under strict restrictions due to the Coronavirus Pandemic as Government social distancing laws prohibit fans inside venues resulting in games being played behind closed doors. (Photo by Alex Davidson/Getty Images)
IT was a close-run thing, but on the balance of predicatability, the TMO system just sneaked home ahead of Owen Farrell's behavioural tendencies in last weekend's “well… THERE'S a shock” contest-within-a-contest between Saracens and Harlequins in North London.
In other words, the bookies would have offered marginally shorter odds on the “video ref ” set-up being exposed – yet again – as a dog's breakfast than on the union game's most combative outside-half reacting in a tempestuous way to a cheap shot upon his person.
Remember the old Woody Allen joke? “It's the Second Law of Thermodynamics: sooner or later, everything turns to s*&!.” Allen was spot on in every respect bar one: in rugby, the word “later” doesn't apply.
It was clear from the get-go that the introduction of TMOs would create more problems than it solved, but the authorities, such as they are, have pressed on regardless, shifting the goalposts and sanctioning all manner of mission creep in a futile bid to make an unworkable system work better. And, in the process, making it work worse.
Where the hell are we with this stuff ? After weeks, months and years of missed forward passes and messed-up goal-line decisions and deeply questionable decisions around cards of various colours and officials calling each other “mate” five times a minute, your columnist finds himself descending – or, maybe, ascending – into the psychological condition known as “past caring”.
If the people running the sport really want to make themselves a laughing stock by defending this nonsense, that's their business. Who are we, mere rugby lovers, to stop them? Instead of expending all that negative energy, let's just treat ourselves to a chuckle on a weekend and get on with our lives.
