All Blacks legends Kieran Read and Justin Marshall have fumed over the TMO interruptions which impacted the Nations Championship games last weekend.
Having become used to Super Rugby Pacific, which has limited the role of the video officials, New Zealanders and Australians are back playing under World Rugby laws.
That effectively enables the TMO to come in and correct any mistake they see from the man in the middle, but it led to some lengthy delays at the weekend.
It has resulted in plenty of criticism of the process, with Marshall particularly scathing of what he saw on Saturday.
‘We’re lucky in Super Rugby’
“It’s the elephant in the room isn’t it? It’s lingering in the air and everybody saw it for what it was at the weekend,” he said on the GBRANZ podcast.
“What we’ve been very lucky with in Super Rugby was the law that the TMO can only come into the game for an act of foul play which is yellow card level or in the act of scoring a try.
“We’ve gone back to international governing laws where the TMO basically has the ability to referee the game. Whatever he picks up, whether it’s a neck roll or a knock-on or an offside, he can come in and tell the referee.
“That there is where the issue is and there are two TMOs there because there’s one for foul play and there’s one for normal game time.”
Former All Blacks captain Read then chimed in, revealing his frustration at the role of the TMO and how they don’t take ownership of the decision.
While they alert the referees to moments that may need reviewing, they often take a step backwards in order to allow the officials in the middle to decide the outcome.
That is despite arguably having a clearer view of the incidents in the truck, with referees sometimes looking at screens which are a fair distance away.
“The worst thing is all we see on the TV is a shot of the refs staring up at the big screen looking at it. Like, what are you doing? Make a decision. If you’ve come in from the top, you know what it is, make a decision,” Read said.
“Don’t fluff around with it, this is what it is and get the ref down there. He’s looking at this screen to make the call, but you’ve got all these angles, all these screens in front of you, if you’re coming down into the ref’s ear, make a call and that should be the call.
“In the Aussie game, a [Max] Jorgensen tip-tackle, the ref literally two metres says he’s happy with it. It probably was a penalty but he’s right there, happy with it and we play for three minutes.
“There was a great phase of play, Aussie win a penalty, they kick the ball out and we’re having a lineout inside the 22 when the TMO came in.
“All we see is the ref running to the screen, looking and saying: ‘It’s a penalty’, but it’s just so frustrating. If you want to come into the game as a TMO make the call.”
Bizarre Ruben Love incident
There were several TMO interruptions during the All Blacks versus Italy clash, including a farcical incident involving Ruben Love which saw the fly-half yellow carded before it was rescinded after being reviewed.
“If we’re going to do this and it’s going to be part of it and they’re going to persist with it in the game, get it right,” Marshall said.
“Ultimately, it was a shambles in Wellington. The fact that we went all the way to halfway for a kick-off, both times we have conversions, and two times the referee came back all the way down to where the try had been scored to the big screen.
“It’s like, why have you not got this sorted while the conversion was being taken, or stop the play while you’re reviewing it, so we don’t have this farcical thing where both teams are all the way down and someone’s got to come back?
“And then just to add to the drama, something I’ve never, ever seen before in my life, a bloke gets yellow carded for a cynical foul, gets put on the naughty chair and next minute comes running back on. How on earth have they managed to balls that up.”
Read responded: “The ref made a snap decision and he was wrong, so good on him for admitting that he was wrong and getting that right – it would have been unfair for Ruben Love to have that yellow card. But also, you’ve got to go, ‘what’s going on?’ The time it takes for that to happen, that’s what is not right.”