Red card for Stoltz

What about the ref?

In the match between the Cats and the Chiefs at Ellis Park on Friday, the referee gave Willem Stoltz of the Cats a red card for use of the boot on a player's neck. That was just before half-time.

On Saturday morning, the judicial committee met at Ellis Park Stadium to view video evidence in Stoltz's disciplinary hearing.

A statement issued by the Cats' management read: "Willem Stoltz, lock of the Cats, was found not guilty of maliciously kicking a Chiefs player in the match at Ellis Park Stadium on Friday night. Stoltz will therefore be able to depart with the rest of the Cats team on the overseas leg of the tour to Australasia."

For a judicial hearing there is a presenter. He puts the case and collates the evidence. The presenter was Gabriel Pappas, the secretary of the Golden Lions Referees' Society. Present to view the evidence was Stuart Dickinson.

The Cats' statement continued: "The committee chairman asked the presenter, Mr Gabriel Pappas and the referee, Mr. Stuart Dickinson to view the video material. Mr. Pappas informed the chairman that the referee was satisfied that Stoltz was not involved in the incident and found him not guilty."

The viewing was not easy. Four different camera angles were used and the action was slowed down to seven times normal speed.

The action was as follows:

The Cats won a line-out. Stoltz is the player who goes up high to win the ball. He drops it down to scrumhalf Ricky Januarie who feed Ashwin Willemse. The wing darts ahead and is tackled. The Cats' players get the ball back, and prop Daniel Muller feeds lock Trevor Hall who charges ahead. Sione Lauaki of the Chiefs stops Hall. Lauaki and hall fall onto the ground.

The first three players to join in to the action are Stoltz, Muller and loosehead Pietman van Niekerk. There is not body ahead of them and they all fall down. They do not dive, they stumble over the prone players and do so in disarray.

Stoltz falls apart from Lauaki and almost on his stomach, his head away from Lauaki. Boots flap about. It's hard to say if anybody is doing anything deliberate. Stoltz's boot is close to Lauaki. Lying there Stoltz gives the impression of looking back towards Lauaki.

A boot strikes Lauaki in the neck/head.

When the slow motion reduces the speed to a seventh of its normal speed, it would seem that the boot belonged to Daniel Muller.

At the time the Chiefs player identified Stoltz as the guilty party and approached him with angry emotion.

There are several points which could be made.

1. A referee needs to be 100% sure when sending a player off. He should be sure of any decision but 100% sure for such a big one - "willing to put his house on it", as referees say.

2. The referee in this case felt sure and did not need to consult a touch judge. In any case he had the best view as he was right there. That he made the decision himself can be virtue if he had the best view of it - as Steve Walsh had done in the case of Scott Murray in the last round of Six Nations - and Dickinson was then the touch judge.

3. It's not a case here of nothing happening. A boot did strike Lauaki on the neck/head. A case can be made for a red card in such an instance. In this instance some would have thought a yellow card justified as what had happened could have been reckless/accidental rather than malicious. But something untoward happened.

4. Accept that it was worthy of a red card, then it seemed that this was a case of mistaken identity. In that case the Cats would have lost another player instead of Stoltz, Muller it seems.

5. The Chiefs' reaction may well have identified Stoltz as the guilty party in the referee's mind though the Chiefs may have been reacting to his swinging arm as he came to clean Lauaki out.

6. That the referee accepted that Stoltz was not the guilty party does not state that nobody was guilty. His acknowledgement of error is not blameworthy - to the contrary. Going through the action the reason for the mistake is understandable as there were ten boots on the ends of legs lying on the ground, four of them Cats' boots, six of them reasonably close to each other.

7. Last point, made in the full knowledge that it will not change perceptions however erroneous and unfair they may be: Stuart Dickinson is a good referee and a good man who harbours no ill will to South Africa at all. His first visit to the country was several years ago when he was not at all a famous referee.

But perceptions build. There are people in other corners of the world who have different referees as their pet aversions and they are unfair. So there are South Africans who judge Dickinson rashly and unfairly. He has been chosen by an independent body as one of the top 16 referees in the world. If he is that bad what are we saying about the many thousands ranked below him?

There is also a perception that nothing gets done - that referees are not accountable. That is not true. The teams involved in the match have the right to submit a report on the refereeing of the match and at each match there is a performance reviewer, the new name for an assessor. On Friday at Ellis Park, the assessor was Arrie Schoonwinkel of Bloemfontein.

The assessor has a complicated report to be filled in and backed up with facts. That report with a video of the match will got to the relevant authorities - at least the International Rugby Board, which also monitors the assessors so that the guards are guarded!