My reaction watching the match live was that there could have been three yellow cards issued in the first 20 minutes, for incidents in which Mr Pearson awarded 2 penalties. Now, I was sitting near the back of the Lower Rouse opposite the players’ tunnel, so my view of all three incidents was not great, and the referee was well placed to see each one, so, for the moment at least, benefit of the doubt to “Sir”.

However, I have now had the opportunity (which of course Mr Pearson did not have) of watching the match on Sky, with the aid of Sky Plus, which gives me the benefit of about 16 camera angles, slow motions etc. In fact when someone coined the phrase “Hindsight is a wonderful thing” Sky Plus had not been invented. So with the benefit of this technology, do I think the referee got it right?

The first incident was the first aerial collision involving Alex Goode. From the stands it looked bad, but Mr P immediately pronounced “He was going for the ball”. Now I don’t really understand why, on that interpretation, he awarded a penalty, because there is insufficient explanation, but I assume he ruled it as clumsy, worthy of a penalty but no more. There has been mention of the tendency for everyone to jump to take high balls in order to get protection rather than out of necessity to compete for the ball, and I can see why, but equally there is a tendency for “innocent” clumsiness to “accidentally” take out a player. Goode was definitely hurt in this fall and it may well have been a factor in him uncharacteristically spilling the ball later with a certain try if he caught it.

The second incident was the fabulous rolling maul which led to Nieto’s attempted try. The video ref was entirely correct not to award it, as the ball cannot be seen at all on the replays, so he cannot possibly pronounce it a try. Pearson’s question was “Is that a try, yes or no?” and “No” was the only possible answer. However, from 5m out it is embarrassingly clear that two Sale men are trying desperately to collapse the maul. The minimum sanction for this is a penalty, but this close to the try line, I cannot see why it is not a yellow card and penalty try. I thought that in real time, I think it still, and I am not sure why Mr Pearson did not see it that way. The maul did not collapse as such, because Sale failed in their efforts, but they did enough to prevent a try being scored. In my humble opinion!

Number three was the second air disaster involving Alex Goode. The referee pronounced it “Just a timing issue” and awarded a penalty. My comments above apply, but on this occasion there was no attempt to get the ball. I can see why Mr Pearson did not get his cards out, but I don’t agree with him. With the first clash you need to construct something of a conspiracy theory to turn it into a crime, not so with the second. For what it is worth from watching many replays, I think that the Sale Hooker, Briggs, decided to tackle before he realised that Goode was jumping, thought about pulling out and then went through with the tackle anyway. However, that is just my interpretation.

You may remember an incident at Gloucester a few years ago when Kameli Ratuvou was cited and banned for taking out Ian Balshaw, who jumped into him, and even watching the replays with the benefit of the hearing transcript I could not for the life of me see where they had got the “intent” from. Of course, the Citing Officer on that occasion was Budge Pountney IIRC so maybe it was a case of assuming like minded thinking!

I am not here to say that Mr Pearson was wrong or did a poor job. As an occasional whistle blower, I know that the referee can only deal with the tip of the iceberg of accidental and intentional law-breaking that goes on in any match. And there is no way I would want his job! However, to my mind the spectators would have had a different and better game if Mr P had flashed Yellow in at least one of the above incidents. I am not going to go on at length about bodies off their feet at every ruck, but it was so persistent that a second yellow would not have been unreasonable in my view.

But we won! Still undefeated and 6 points clear of the field at the top of the league. If we can just add Leicester to the list of victories on 2 January we will have gone through the whole field unbeaten, and what a story it is already.

And it was nice to see Dave Seymour getting good game time in front of his fan(s) at Vicarage Road!

Scorers: Saracens: Pens: Hougaard (5) Sale: Try: Koyamaibole 28 Con: Hodgson Pens: Hodgson (2)
Referee: D Pearson (RFU) Attendance: 7,101
Saracens: A Goode (rep 18min, R Penney), N Cato, K Ratuvou, A Powell, C Wyles, D Hougaard (R Penney 18min), M Rauluni; R Gill, S Brits (E Reynecke 52min) , C Nieto (R Skuse 52min), S Borthwick (capt), H Smith (H Vyvyan 52min), W van Heerden, A Saull (D Barrell 52min), E Joubert.
Sale: N Macleod, M Vakacegu, M Tait, D Bishop, B Cohen, C Hodgson, R Wigglesworth; E Roberts, N Briggs, J Forster (M Halsall 71min), D Schofield (capt) (J Gaskell 31min), S Cox, C Fearns, D Seymour, S Koyamaibole.

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