Coenie Oosthuizen’s criticisim of referee during scrums - Rugby news
Coenie Oosthuizen, who represents Vodacom Cheetahs during the Currie Cup and Super Rugby tournament, is cynical of the referee’s understanding of the scrum rules especially on behalf of the loosehead props who were frequently misjudged and were unduly penalised
in the Super Rugby.
Oosthuizen’s splendid performance during the Super Rugby Tournament has gained him recognition across in the rugby world. This has also gotten him a spot in the South African national rugby union team, Springboks. He will be Test-debuting against Australia
for Tri- Nations which is kicking off by July 23, in Sydney.
He has proved his mettle with a hattrick scored against the Griquas team for Vodacom Cheetahs in 2010 Currie Cup, which has officially made him the top scorer of Cheetas in Curie Cup 2010.
Speaking about the storm of penalties hurled at looseheads, to one of the sports channel’s representative, Oosthuizen stated, “The season was a very funny one. We conceded a lot of penalties at the beginning of the season because referees did not really
have an idea what was going on in the scrums. They never played there ... if something went wrong, the loosehead was always penalised.”
According to him, he was subjected to penalty a lot more in the beginning but towards the end of the game, he managed to pull through without many of them, which was earned the hard way, as penalty cost them heavily initially.
Also he brought the fact to attention that scrum laws need to be modified as the fault of the opponents was unjustifiably laid upon the loosehead props, which drove the encounter for one team out of proportion completely.
Acknowledging the fact that he had played well during the recent Super Rugby Tournament, the 22-year-old further added, “Things are falling into place now. I played some good rugby in the Super Rugby tournament and could not ask for more.”
However, the penalties he had to face the most were of “hinging”, due to the misjudgement by the referee as Oosthuizen explained it further, “The referees gain the impression that you are hinging when the scrum collapses. It's easy for the tighthead to dive
down and then the loosehead has to keep him up."
This specifically benefitted the “tightheads” who are heavier in built. For them falling down on the ground to leave the impression of hinging for the looseheads is much easily achieved, which led to more frequently penalised looseheads. It was further clarified
by Oosthuizen that he was not imposing that referees were always wrong in their decisions but it was stressed upon that modifications are to be made in order to improve the game and prevent unfair penalties.
It was further highlighted that generally looseheads were targeted more often than any other position in the squad, which makes the review of the scrum laws all the more important.
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