By Kath 25/3/04
April 7 2004

Sir Clive Woodward England's Head Coach talks to Zurich's Andrew Titheridge about referees both Northern and Southern Hemisphere!!

For immediate release: 25 March 2004
Issued on behalf of Zurich

Zurich Daily Report with Clive Woodward
Speaking on www.zurichpremiership.com

Andrew Titheridge:   You will see the referee tomorrow, it's a Northern Hemisphere referee, is that good news for England or does that not really make any difference?

Sir Clive Woodward:  It is not a case of being Northern or Southern it just depends on the individual referee. We have Alain Roland and he is the best around. I think that he has been picked because he speaks fluent French. We know him well, we have had him loads of times and I am surprised that he did not go further in the World Cup, he is almost too young, which is a shame because I think that his refereeing performance in the World Cup was probably one of the best.

Along with Paddy O'Brien, I am surprised that we did not see him in the Semi-Finals or Final. So he is one of the top referees in the world. We will meet him as usual, go through our usual stuff, and have a cup of tea with him.

There has been quite a lot talked about the referees since the World Cup Final but hand on heart you look at referees and see afterwards whether they affected the result and the answer is always no. The guy in the World Cup Final was probably the closest we have come but even in the loss to Ireland when we had a few issues with the referee, we looked afterwards and asked did it affect the result, and no it was down to us, not the referee. So there are different interpretations and every referee is a little different.

Alain Rowland is funnily enough one of the few international referees who has played international rugby. He played for Ireland at scrum half and he gets very close to the ruck because he is used to it, he has no fear of it and because he is close we have to be clinically clean because he gets the closest to the action of any referee.

Other referees, who are less comfortable around the contact area, sometimes stand ten metres away and they tend to miss a few more things but we like him and the French like him and once again we hope that the result is not affected by the referee.

Andrew Titheridge:  Is there a difference between Northern and Southern hemisphere referees or has that gap been closed?

Sir Clive Woodward:   No, you have these meetings and you go through all the various things and, honestly, they are all saying the same thing, you can't say that's what the Southern Hemisphere do and that's what the Northern Hemisphere do, they are all saying the same thing.

It is more down to the individual referees interpretation, sometimes you have someone that has just come from a Super Twelve tournament, they don't tend to referee the contact areas as closely as the Northern Hemisphere referees but in terms of understanding the laws of the game there is no difference, it is totally uniform and nothing to do with where they come from.

We now do an analysis on the referee, especially looking at the last two games, picking out what he is strong at and then when we have a conversation with him we mention this to him and they tend to agree but they have all got their little ideas about how to create a great game of rugby.

You have got to know how to coach your players on how to play the game. I think that the meetings are really healthy, if the referees say something on the Friday that they are going to do, you have just got to make sure that the team react on the Saturday. But it is a two way thing and we ask him what he is expecting of us and is there anything that he wants to tell us.

They do their homework; they are full time professional referees. Alain Rowland is full time referee he will have watched our games against Ireland and Wales and he will try and watch out for the trends so that he goes in mentally prepared as well.

But as I said, with the exception of the World Cup Final, where the referee nearly came close to influencing the outcome of the game but fortunately we won the World Cup and we put that argument to bed as well. In six years I have never been able to say a referee has cost us that game or the referee has won us that game.

ENDS

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