Ugo Monye ‘100%’ behind bunker system coming to Gallagher Premiership Rugby – ‘I thought it was a success’

The bunker was introduced ahead of rugby’s showpiece event in France to take pressure off referees and allow for more informed decisions to be made regarding foul play.

The Television Match Official (TMO) bunker gives officials an opportunity to review potential foul play while play continues without the pressure of the crowd looking on.

Its use drew criticism from some quarters over a perceived inconsistency in sanctioning, but Monye believes it represented a step forward and would like to see it brought to England’s domestic top tier.

“Yes, 100%,” Monye said, when asked if he would welcome the bunker in the Premiership. “I thought it worked really well at the World Cup.

“It was swift, we didn’t have replay after replay up on the screen. It was down to where people got to focus on the rugby, and we got to make right decisions.

“It takes the pressure off the referees, so it allows whatever man or woman who’s away from the pressure of an in-game match to sit and properly look at all the different angles to come to the right decision.

“I liked it, I thought it was a success.”

The World Cup final featured three yellow cards and a red card for New Zealand captain Sam Cane.

Cane was shown a yellow pending review by referee Wayne Barnes for his high tackle on Jesse Kriel in the 27th-minute before it was upgraded to red, making him the first player in history to be sent off in a World Cup final.

In the second-half, Cane’s opposite number, South Africa captain Siya Kolisi, was also yellow-carded for a similar incident but escaped further punishment from those in the bunker.

It was one of a number of decisions during the tournament that sparked debate among pundits and fans as officials appeared to come under more scrutiny than ever before.

Monye thinks such forensic examination of referees is unfair and pointed to football’s issues with VAR as evidence the sport is in a good place.

“You can’t speak about officiating and TMO without making comparisons to what we see in other sports, namely football and VAR,” he added. “Comparatively, we’re light years ahead and we should be because we’ve embedded our refereeing and TMO protocols for a significant period of time.

“And so all of these things are relative, aren’t they?

“Of course there’s scrutiny over things because people are passionate and they want everything to be gotten right. Comparatively, I think we should be reasonably pleased with where we are at as a game.

“Communication, we get to hear the conversation between referees and TMOs. I don’t think it takes lengthy periods to get the right decisions. We saw the introduction of the bunker so things happen more speedily, so we got to focus on the game. And the majority of the time we got the right answer.

“All I would say is that the conversation around officials and refs is out of kilter with the conversation we have around players and coaches, because we accept that players make mistakes, whilst not accepting that referees make mistakes.

“I think we need to just get greater balance over that. And whilst, you know, once it goes through TMO review, we have more time, therefore we expect less mistakes, we’re still dealing with humans and humans have error. So we should just accept it so long as it’s not frequent, and hopefully not game defining.”

The big criticism is that players are being punished severely for unintentional acts, like Cane’s in Paris, but Monye offered up a potential solution that could see less red cards brandished and more games finish as 15-on-15.

“The one conversation and the one law change I would make would be maybe a 20-minute orange card or yellow card. We’re into round six of the Gallagher Premiership and we’ve seen one red card. And that wasn’t even for a high tackle.

“We know how competitive games are and we’re not seeing what you’d call traditional foul play: punching, kicking, stamping, striking any of that. We’re seeing what I would consider technical offences or technical mistakes when it comes to tackling, especially around high contact and head contact.

“I just wonder if red carding someone who might potentially miss more than 40 minutes of the match is the right way to sanction a player, or do we offer up a 20-minute yellow card just as a suggestion.

“Then we might sanction them bit more harshly away from the pitch so we still get the contest but we’re also underlying the fact that we’re taking head contact and player safety and welfare [seriously], which will always be paramount in the game.

“That would be a suggestion or at least a suggestion for a conversation that should be had around rugby.”