OCTOBER 20 ― It’s impossible not to feel sympathy for Scotland after their cruel exit from the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals against Australia on Sunday.
The Scots were the verge of advancing into the last four as they led by two points heading into the final few seconds, but then a calamitous error from referee Craig Joubert wrongly awarded a penalty to Australia, allowing them to convert a game-winning penalty with the last kick.
To compound his error, and perhaps as realisation of the ramifications of his mistake began to sink in, Joubert then dispensed with the usual post-match courtesies of shaking hands with the players and instead sprinted straight down the tunnel and into the safety of his dressing room.
Since then, all hell has broken loose. The overwhelming dominance of football ensures that rugby generally struggles to make much headway into mainstream British culture, but at the moment Joubert and his already infamous mistake is the hottest of discussion topics.
One commonly raised complaint, including by the Scotland coach Vern Cotter, is that Joubert should have taken a few moments to consult with his video official, who would have reviewed the tape, realised the error and made the correct decision.
That, however, was not an option because the rule book does not allow video technology to be consulted for offences of that nature ― some things can be reviewed, but in this case whatever the referee says is final.
The incident is just the latest high-profile instalment of a much bigger issue of how we should use technology ― mainly television replays but also sensory devices ― to assist officials in sporting events, which has been hotly debated ever since it became possible.
Many old-fashioned followers of sport are aghast at the idea of modern gadgets interfering with their time-honoured traditions.
They believe that human error is part and parcel of the game, and that athletes should have the good grace to accept whatever decisions happen to come their way, however unjust and costly they may be.
These traditionalists also regularly raise fears that repeatedly referring to a video official would take too long, delaying the game while Mr TV Ref calls for multiple angle slow motion replays before making his decision.
Well, I think those arguments are a load of nonsense and that technology should be used wherever it is possible, practical and helpful.
Firstly, yes it is true that human error is a fundamental part of sport. Even the best of our species are flawed and imperfect beings, capable of slipping below their highest standards at any moment by making an unexplained mental or physical mistake.
However, that should only apply to the competitors ― not to the officials, who are only there to allow the contest to take place as smoothly as possible, with the rules adhered to. The best officials are the ones we don’t notice.
Sport, ultimately, is about one human, or one team of humans, competing against another. On any given day, the best man or men or woman or women should win. Of course, luck will inevitably be involved: a miss by an inch or fraction here, a thoughtless action there, a strange and unanticipated bounce of the ball there.
But those strokes of fortune should, wherever possible, only be confined to the direct actions of the contest and not the input of referees, whose impact should be absolutely minimal and certainly not, as it was on Sunday, absolutely fundamental.
Completely removing the imperfections of officials is an impossible task. However many safety nets there might be, some mistakes will slip through. But with so much at stake in elite level sporting events, we should do whatever we can to eradicate them.
In many cases, the sheer speed of the action as it unfolds in real time, and the poor view often afforded to officials, can make it close to impossible for referees to make accurate decisions with any confidence. Often, they can do little more than offer an educated guess and hope they are right.
For me, it is therefore an absolute no-brainer that we should give officials whatever assistance we can, and it is true that significant inroads have been made across a wide range of sports in the last decade.
In cricket, dismissals can be checked for no-balls, clean catches, leg before wicket decisions and run outs; in tennis, players can challenge line calls to determine whether the ball was in or out; in football, goalline technology is slowly being introduced to conclusively judge if the ball has crossed the line; in rugby and American football, tries and touchdowns are confirmed or denied in a similar fashion.
In each of those cases, the old fallacy that TV replays take “too long” and therefore disturb the flow of the game have been disproved. These interruptions take a matter of seconds and have been completely accepted by spectators for a simple reason: they have made the sports better.
But we should do more. We have technology at our disposal, and we should use it. For everything. Don’t stop where we are now ― use it however we can. If we can significantly reduce the possibility of incorrect decisions determining the outcome of high stakes sporting contests, we should seize any opportunity.
If we already did that, the right team ― the deserving team ― would now be in the Rugby World Cup semi-final, rather than the team who only won because the referee made a mistake.
And that, surely, would only be a good thing.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
