Edinburgh coach frustrated by interventions of ‘eagle-eyed’ TMO

Edinburgh coach Mike Blair was left to lament his team’s lack of accuracy and the interventionist nature of the television match official (TMO) in their 15-9 defeat to the Lions at Ellis Park on Saturday.

He was frustrated that the flow of the game was interrupted by what he described as the “eagle-eyed” TMO official, Ben Crouse.

Coaches and players have been told about their obligation to speed play up to make the game more of a spectacle but overzealous officials have had the opposite effect.

Blair admitted the game’s officials have to strike a difficult balance between arriving at the right decision without sucking the vibrancy out of the match.

“We want the game to move quickly,” said Blair. “We want quick decisions. We want the players to fatigue because that creates space and we play more attacking rugby. But we also want to make the right decisions. It is difficult for us to say ‘come on, speed the game up’ and then also insist on the right decisions. Sometimes you have to go to the TMO.

“If the TMO comes in and says, ‘we have foul play here’, I can't think of too many refs who will say, ‘I’m not too bothered, I want the game moving.’”

The coach felt his team were under the microscope at Ellis Park, and the Lions did not have their actions magnified as often.

“It wasn’t the quickest game either. The TMO had to see if we had any foul play. It was quite a slow game at times. The TMO was particularly eagle-eyed on one side of the game. I’m always conscious about this kind of thing because I don’t want it to become the story.

“I felt they spent a lot of time looking for things that we’d done. We spent about three, four minutes to find a high tackle that was made by our player while he was on his knees.

“There were others where they sifted through footage for ages trying to look for things. We had two or three clear-cut headshots, a no-arms tackle that wasn’t looked at.

“We got the rub of the green in different ways against the Sharks last week. I understand things go in swings and roundabouts.”

He did not have any issues with the two big decisions that helped shape the outcome of the game when Edinburgh had a try disallowed or when they had a player sin-binned.

“The no-try decision was fairly key. It was the right decision, it shouldn’t have been a try. The yellow card decision was clear.”

He pointed to his team’s shortcomings. “We weren’t quite on our game and when you drop off, a quality side like the Lions will make you pay.”

Ultimately Blair was satisfied that his team were able to bag five log points on their trip to SA.

“I don’t know if many teams will come to SA and get five points from two games. Taking five points is fine. This is a tough league.”