Popular Welsh referee Nigel Owens has explained openly why he and fellow officials always fail to penalise scrum-halves for crooked feeds at scrums in the professional game.
“I’m not surprised so many people asked that because that gets asked pretty much everywhere I go.
“They’re right. We are not good enough as referees refereeing it. That’s the simple answer.
“There are many reasons for that, don’t get me wrong. You can have so many problems in the scrum and you’re focussing on the front row, the height, the binding, especially if scrums are a nightmare in some games.
“You’re focussing so much on those other things, the feed is down your checklist, you know. That’s not an excuse but it is a contributing factor.
“The long and the short of it is we need to get back to refereeing the feed better, there’s no doubt. We don’t do it and we should be doing it.
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“You’ve also got ask the nines why put it in that way, mind.
“But we do talk about it as referees when we get together and that is something I would like to see change to make it a fair contest.
“Everybody always asks about it so it obviously it is a bugbear for everybody in the game.
“So, I agree, as referees – me included – we’re just not good enough with it.”
The post Nigel Owens reveals why referees don’t penalise crooked scrums appeared first on Ruck.
