In the final part of our interview series with Ben Skeen, recently appointed to the Rugby World Cup, he discusses his most memorable experiences on the world stage, the British Lions, Six Nations, the referee communication strategy and when he leaves for England.
When Rugby went professional back in 1995, many mooted that the Lions tours would lose relevance but South Africa in 1997 made it clear that wasn’t the case and now it’s bigger than ever. What was it like to be involved in the officiating?
Unbelievable. When you talk of memorable experiences at the international level my two memorable experiences would be the second Lions vs Australia test in 2013 and the recent England versus France game in the Six Nations.
During the Lions tour we were based in Melbourne for the week with the Rebels / Lions game on the Tuesday and then stayed until the test match on the Saturday. So we got a real impression of what it meant to the supporters who had travelled to support the team and how much it meant to the Australian folk: with Australia going into that match under some pressure to entrench Rugby within the nation.
There was an incredible volume in the stadium and it was a very tense match. Test 1 has ended with a last minute penalty and so did Test 2 with both games ending on a knife’s edge.
It’s also important because when I look at the next Lions tour being played in New Zealand and with a view on neutrality: “I’m gone”. So outside of that, it’s Lions in South Africa in 2021 and there is a lot of water to cross before you get to that: the reality of being able to officiate at it is possibly very limited. I am incredibly grateful that I was able to be involved at those games at the time and fortunate enough to be sitting in the box.
You mentioned your second most memorable game as being England versus France? What was it like?
Simply awesome.. A fantastic day for rugby in the North Hemisphere. You had Wales come out and play superbly to beat the Italians in Rome and the Irish went on to play some fantastic football against a Scottish side that many were considering would pull out the performance that they were looking for all tournament. So for the Irish to go there and win was no mean feat with the score they did.
So then, attention turned to Twickenham and we were aware that England could still win the championship against France and top the table at Ireland’s expense. England needed to win by 26 points which was an incredible task and they came incredibly close to pulling it off.
What an amazing game, too, with 80 points scored between two teams that were very keen to use the ball and play in a positive manner which goes to show that when people say “rugby is broken” or “it’s become too complex”, actually when the pressure is on to perform and score points there is plenty of opportunity to do so.
You had plenty to do in that match? In the first twenty minutes Noa Nakaitaci went over for a French Try but didn’t put it down immediately.
What were you thinking as he was ‘taking his time’?
It would have been appreciated if he had put the ball down straight away: that would have been one less call to make on a busy night. But as TMOs we just deal with what we are presented with and as soon as the ball was put down I knew “This is going to be a particularly difficult call and it was so incredibly close to simultaneous that it would require a significant number of looks” which it ended up being. Thankfully, having worked with Nigel [Owens, Referee] before, he was very confident to leave that decision to me and we got to the right outcome.
One of the specifics that people talked about after was whether there was control – and Nigel spoke to me live about it at the time. What happens in those split by split replays is that you begin to sense separation and think “maybe something has happened” but when the footage is speeded up there isn’t a problem. So for me, it was always about which went down first: foot or ball.
Thankfully we had half a frame that was able to illustrate that a try needed to awarded.
In terms of interaction, you said you’ve worked with Nigel Owens before but in the England v France match that communication came to the fore with the Anthony Watson try. There are times that TMO decisions seem to take too long and it looked like Nigel was trying to move the game on.
What’s it like needing to be so firm with someone you don’t know as well as say, a SANZAR colleague?
In the days leading up to a test, we as a referee team will talk at length about what we are seeing in all competitions. We’ll be discussing events we have seen previously and asking whether we agree and what our interpretations are. Then outside of that, how the officials spoke and how they could have spoken differently. Then a discussion arises around how our team will communicate on the day.
For example, a referee might say: “If I see something and you agree. You should say ‘I agree’ or ‘Yes, that is correct’ and then when I go on to say what I am going to do, how will you communicate that to me that you disagree?”
So we do a lot of work around how we will speak and as the game has progressed people have become less concerned about using certain phrases.
During the England / France game you would have heard me use the phrase “No, Nigel” simply because we didn’t need to flower it up and I needed to move on to look at a new view on the high definition monitor next to me which meant that I could see the French hand that allowed the try to be awarded. Had we not interacted like that, we could have come to the wrong decision which would have been totally unacceptable in a match of that importance.
Well that pretty much wraps it up from me. We’d all like to say ‘Congratulations on your appointment to the Rugby World Cup’ and wish you well. Do you have any plans in England during the World Cup?
My wife Hayley will be travelling for three weeks which is wonderful and hopefully other members of the family who are looking to come up can make it.
The entire referee team is meeting in France for a week at the end of May then we all have either Rugby Championship or World Cup warm-up matches to do. I have two, one in Australia and another in South Africa during that time. Then we are required to arrive on 10 September with the tournament starting on the 18th.
At this stage everything else is completely unknown. It could be that we as TMOs are on every second day. It could be that we are based in one location and travel to the venues or that we go to one area and deal with all of those games. I simply don’t know yet.
We’ll continue to follow Ben’s journey throughout the year and keep you up to date when we know more. But in the meantime, if you haven’t already, make the call to 0800 REFEREE.
