Referee calls off the France Vs Ireland game
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Published on 12-02-12 13:02
Number of Views: 12694
The France v Ireland game was called off moments before the scheduled last night due to the pitch being frozen.
The referee, Dave Pearson of England, has received quite bad press about the late call off, but I believe unfairly so.
The organisers obviously wanted the game to go ahead, as did the players & fans, but the officials and coaches were in constant discussion about the pitch. It is understood that parts of the pitch were already frozen and with the temperatures due to drop further as the night went on, the safety of the players had to be paramount.
Dave Pearson decided on the final inspection that the pitch was not safe, which is exactly what he is required to do in law. The laws state:
Law 1.6 states:
1.6 OBJECTIONS TO THE GROUND
(a) If either team has objections about the ground or the way it is marked out they must tell the referee before the match starts.
(b) The referee will attempt to resolve the issues but must not start a match if any part of the ground is considered to be dangerous.
I understand that there will be a lot of unhappy people that had travelled a long way to see the game, but if we are going to point at people, lets make sure we point at the right people.
While Dave Pearson was the man that made the decision that the game could not go ahead, it was not him that decided to schedule a game in the middle of February late in the evening.
There is no reason, apart from French preference, that the game could not have been played at the normal 3pm slot that all other games normally occupy.
It was not Dave Pearson that decided to build a state of the art modern stadium in the north of Europe without undersoil heating.
All Dave Pearson did was think about the safety of the 30+ men that would be running on it, and to be fair to the coaches, both backed the referee stating that it was the correct decision.
This is of course no comfort to those that have spent a lot of money travelling to the game, but alas, these things happen in the midst of a cold winter. Most Grassroots rugby games were also cancelled.
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