Both sides need to maximise their earning potential but instead of agreeing a common approach, there has been division. We are now in the world of entertainment and many clubs, Saracens included, have taken that on board by improving facilities for players and supporters alike. It is all about developing the product and for that to happen, everyone must pull in the same direction.". The last four months have seen the biggest changes in rugby I have known. Some of them have been both exciting and overdue: others neither. But what has become apparent with every Saturday afternoon is that not only the quality but the very nature of the game depends on the referee. It is his interpretation of the laws, as they are called in England - the rules, almost everywhere else - which determines what happens on the field So far, so obvious, you may say dismissively.
But it is not obvious at all when you come to think about it. Thus football is a simple game, which is why it is so popular, whose only complicated area is the application of the offside rule. Here the referee has two qualified linesmen virtually to apply it on his behalf. Tennis is even simpler, where the only difficulty lies in judging whether the ball was inside, on or outside a white line. Here electronic devices have come to the aid of the umpires. Cricket, to be sure, is more complicated.
In a scholarship examination which I sat at 18 I had (in a question I chose voluntarily) to explain it to a foreigner I was sorry I tried. But though the rules are complex, they are coherent and comprehensible. There are few areas of latitude: such as what is "unfair play" The principal difficulty is to establish what happened. Accordingly additional officials have been introduced to help the umpires.Rugby is different. There is no agreement about what the rules mean or how they should be applied.
