Wednesday, November 08, 2006

The Referee is Always Right.

Yet again, the game of rugby is showing the world the proper way to behave. The reaction of the England rugby team last Sunday to the totally bizarre decision by the referee not to award Jamie Noon's try was impressively dignified. How am I supposed to carry on suporting every team playing England in the face of such dignity.
This comes to my mind after hearing critisism of our own referee in the National Assembly, Lord Dafydd Elis Thomas - and the utterly contemptible behaviour of the Chelsea team and manager (excepting captain, John Terry) towards Graham Poll after the Tottenham defeat.
I have to admit that I also disagreed with the reaction of some MPs in the House of Commons following the ludicrous decision by the Speaker when he stopped David Cameron asking a perfectly proper question of the Prime Minister.
The reality is that 'Gorbals Mick' was totally 'out of order', Graham Poll does not always get it right and Dafydd El is sometimes a law unto himself- but they are the referees. Any mistakes should be dealt with outside the field of combat.
The more that I think about this, the more respect that I have for the English boys - and especially for Jamie Noon, who had what was probably his greatest dream ruled out unfairly. He had scored against the All Blacks at Twickenham and it was not allowed and he just shrugged his shoulders and got on with the game. That's class.

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