Venter ban raises questions

Friday 22 January 2010
Published By: Ben Welch
Guinness Premiership > Saracens

The case of Brendan Venter has raised the issue of whether the nonsensical practice of half-time report cards for referees should be scrapped.

Comments made by the Saracens director of rugby have earned him a suspended four-week ban, with the RFU ordering him to publicly apologise to the official, David Rose.

In a nutshell, Venter suggested that Rose may have been influenced at half-time, which a disciplinary panel decided could be interpreted as being improper.

But he appears to have actually been referring to the bizarre system whereby players and coaches can fill in cards raising up to three points of concern.

Such a process, surely, exposes Guinness Premiership officials to the possibility of all sorts of claims of strange second-half behaviour.

Referees are likely to come under severe scrutiny during the upcoming Six Nations, particularly after Wales coach Warren Gatland accused them of trying to avoid the controversy that could come with an upset - after his side lost to New Zealand.