Eddie Butler can't escape the spectre of rugby's referees, despite his best efforts, in The Observer.
"In my time away from these pages, dear readers, I have travelled high and low. I have been up Mount Kilimanjaro on the adventure of a lifetime and been washed by the monsoon waters of the lower Usk valley before the sporting milestone that was the Ryder Cup. And everywhere I have been it seems that the rugby referee has gone too. We talked about him at 20,000 feet over Africa, and discussed him even as Europe's golfers demanded that there be no other topic of conversation than their advance down a knife-edge towards victory. You think you've escaped, but there's the ref, by your side.
"His is not an easy lot. Just about the only line of common sense to survive the folly of the project known as the Experimental Law Variations after the 2007 World Cup came from the head of referees at the International Rugby Board, Paddy O'Brien, when he said that the whole aim was to reduce the subjectivity of the referee and thus make him less the centre of attention. It was a noble goal, but one missed by a country mile.
"On Friday night it was hardly the fault of John Lacey, a former wing with Shannon and Munster, and now a ref on the rise, that Northampton and Castres should allow nerves to undermine their deservedly lofty European ambitions. There was nothing any referee could do to cure a Bruce Reihana duck hook, apart from spare him the embarrassment, I suppose, by awarding his side no penalties."
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