The ref used to be decisive but now he’s not so sure

I have just returned from a Mediterranean cruise which meant that I missed the last Pontypool game of the season. I was delighted to see that Pooler recorded a convincing victory in pretty poor weather conditions. Share a thought for us poor dabs who were battling a force nine gale in the English Channel/Bay of Biscay. It was really difficult to stop our drinks sloshing everywhere! Anyway the upshot of the win is that Pontypool finished a creditable fourth in the league and created a firm foundation for a tilt at the league title next season.

I only saw flashes of the Welsh trial match but the bits I did see involved the Probables running in tries against pretty limited defence. I still find it hard to believe that we need to go and get ourselves beaten up down in South Africa instead of giving the boys the summer off. Good luck to Jordan Williams and Matthew Morgan - there could be a new Shane in one of them.

The English Premiership final was an entirely different kettle of fish. A full house at Twickenham watched a fiercely contested battle. In the old days we used to have a decent crowd for the Welsh cup final I seem to remember . There wasn’t much attractive rugby to watch at Twickers but for crunching impacts it was quite remarkable. You do wonder where it all ends as it seems to be heading back to the gladiators in Roman times. Let’s hope we don’t get to the stage when someone gets the thumbs down signal when they lose and has to be put out of their misery.

One of the big concerns that I have is the burgeoning role of the fourth official. This means increasing delays in the game and making it more and more like American football. We are all for the correct refereeing decisions being made but there has to be a limit. Perhaps it will have to go the way of tennis and cricket where each team has a limited number of referrals that they can use. The Saracens try that was disallowed was allegedly reviewed due to crowd pressure. This can’t be right. If we had such a system in Pontypool every try by the opposition would have to be reviewed as some eagle-eyed fan will have always spotted something wrong with it. And what about the Pooler tries that were disallowed most of those were tries really!

Good luck to Wales in South Africa. I hope that the WRU committee men don’t get eaten by lions or crocodiles as they still need to sort out the mess in Welsh rugby when they get back - in case they had forgotten.