Groundsman Willie Was Right

HISTORY credits Groundsman Willie in The Simpsons with dubbing our Gallic cousins: "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". I always felt this showed the programme's American writers up for their failure to grasp the nuances of European history and the Auld Alliance.

An Englishmen might have had a rant about the French, not so a Scotsman, if only on the grounds that my enemy's enemy is my friend.

But, after watching yesterday's Calcutta Cup rugby match, I'm with Willie. L'arbiter, (referee to youse), Monsieur Poutre was shite. Admittedly not as shite as our man Peter Allen, the linesman who allowed Wales to take their illegal and ultimately match-winning quick line out at Cardiff, but, whenever he had a big call to make, he called it for that shower of white-shirted garbage we were playing and in the process further convinced the Barbouratti who so pollute Twickenham that God is indeed an Englishman.

Rant over: sensible head back on.

I long since worked out that for us to beat the English, certain things have to happen:

We have to play at the absolute top of our game - while they play shite. It further helps if they make one or two selectorial blunders and if their collective heads aren't quite right. In this latter respect the help of the English press corps is often an extra man for we Scots, as they overplay the "England Expects" (a World Cup win, a Grand Slam, an easy victory) card.

If everything comes together, more-so if we've got the greater number of world-class players, for once focussed on a common goal, we win; otherwise, they win.

On Sunday everything didn't quite happen, but, we still produced by far our best display of this Six Nations campaign and it wasn't enough.

I can live with that, what I cannot live with is the way our French referee so affected the outcome - by giving the bigger calls to England.

They got three points from a scrummage penalty, which ought to have gone to Scotland, but went England's way. There was a blatant forward pass in the build-up to their try. John Barclay's yellow card was a nonsense, while he missed the forearm smash which ended Kelly Brown's afternoon.

In a game as finely-balanced as Sunday's was, these sorts of calls made the difference. Home side bias by the ref - maybe; incompetence - perhaps.

However, what I do feel is that the referee's performance, coming as it did on the back of several other less-than-blameless performances from officials this year, shows that for all the fuss about Dougiegate, for all the referee-baiting and moaning by the Grumpy Govanite, the French Emir of the Emirates, the little ginger Lurgan Lout and every other manager/coach in the game, fitba isn't so bad.

The Laws of football may not be perfect; there might be different interpretations for every day of the week and while it is enshrined that: "the referee is the sole judge of fact", at least most intelligent people can follow the official's thought processes most of the time.

We might think he is blind, stupid, bent, incompetent, but, sitting at home with a lager to analyse events post-match, most reasonable people can see where the decision came from.

But in rugby, the game for hooligans played by gentlemen, it's not that easy. The laws of rugby are now so complex, it is all but impossible to referee fairly. So much is happening at every scrum, every breakdown, much of what the referee decides is pure guesswork. Now teams are encouraged to play to the referee's interpretation rather than play to the laws - since these laws are often asses.

Scotland got few breaks from the referee on Sunday, because, like so many officials today - he tended to come down on the side of the team which he thought was the superior one, the big team, the one which should win - in Sunday's case England.

Now suppose that happened in Scottish football, that the supposed bigger team got all the breaks from referees!!!

Naw, cannot see that happening either.

A final word on Sunday. What poor hosts the English were. The ref bends over backwards to help them, then, when he gets injured - it's the Scottish team doctor who goes on to assist him, not the English one.

Shocking bad manners what. Terrible hosts.