Saracens director of rugby Brendan Venter has launched an attack on referee David Rose after his side's defeat by Leicester.
Referees "do not have the ability to stay objective", Sarries boss claims
Saracens director of rugby Brendan Venter has launched an extraordinary attack on referee David Rose and his colleagues after his side's 22-15 Guinness Premiership defeat by Leicester.
After watching his previously unbeaten side lose for the second time in successive weekends, Venter raged at Rose's second-half performance - Sarries having been 6-3 up at the interval.
He seemed to imply the referee had been influenced at half time and then used the opportunity to criticise the general standard of officials in the Guinness Premiership, effectively accusing them of lacking the same professional standards as players and coaches.
Leicester hit back on the strength of a dominant scrummaging performance - Toby Flood finishing with 17 points from five penalties plus a conversion following Dan Hipkiss' try.
Venter said: "The penalty count in the first half was 9-3 to Sarries. The penalty count in the second half was 10-4 to Leicester.
"I didn't say to my team: 'Look boys, we are leading, let's cheat more.'
"We asked the referee to keep everything the same in the second half.
"For some reason, something happened to this poor referee and there was basically a 12-count penalty swing.
"There was one referee in the first half, he walked through a maze or something, and he came out another referee.
"I want to look at the opposition, shake his hand and say, 'you out-thought us, you out-played us, you out-muscled us, well done'. That is not what I can do today.
"This is a professional game and this is a problem. I don't think referees are dishonest, we just do not have the ability to stay objective."
Concerns
Venter seems certain to find himself in hot water with the authorities following his outburst but he claims the Rugby Football Union are already aware of his concerns.
During the week, Venter received an apology from RFU referees chief Ed Morrison for the performance of Dean Richards in last weekend's defeat at London Irish.
Venter questioned why referees do not prepare for matches with the same forensic analysis as the coaches and players.
And he claimed the "random" nature of decisions from referees is to blame for what he sees as a lack of attacking rugby in the Premiership this season.
"There is a problem out there and that is the game is determined by referees and not by rugby teams," he said.
"I just think there is no idea what is going on out there. We are professional, we look at rugby games. For us, it is important.
"We sat with the referees this week and went through the entire London Irish game and watched every single breakdown.
"London Irish had 25 offences (missed) last week, we had one. The words were: 'Sorry, we got it unbelievably wrong.'
"I made a request this week for the referee to look at the video of our last game and Leicester's last game but I was told they don't normally do that.
"If I can watch the opposition's last five matches, how come the referee doesn't look at the last game and come prepared?
"Everybody says: 'Why don't you play a lot of rugby?'
"I go: 'Maybe it's just not worth it because it is a lottery.'
"Everybody wants to know why the game is dying. Maybe that is why the game is dying."
Venter was also angered by the sin-binning of Saracens captain Steve Borthwick for getting in the way of a pass from Leicester scrum-half Ben Youngs, an outcome which helped Leicester's comeback.
"Steve Borthwick gets sin-binned when the scrum-half passed the ball directly into him. Steve actually ducked to make sure he doesn't get that," he said.
Conversations
Leicester boss Richard Cockerill insisted no-one from the Tigers had any conversations with Rose at half-time.
Cockerill, who has only just served a month-long ban for abusing match officials, said: "Nobody is allowed to talk to referees at half-time. And, in my case, it is probably a good idea not to!"
Asked about the general standard of refereeing, Cockerill added: "I have got myself into an awful lot of trouble in the last month and so I had probably better not comment.
"Sometimes you get the bounce of the ball, sometimes you don't, but I thought we deserved the win."
Cockerill put the victory down to Flood's influence and the Tigers' destructive second-half scrummaging.
"It was a massive win for us. Saracens are top of the table because they have been playing well, in a style that suits them," he said.
"You want to beat the teams around you and this is massive because we have been poor away from home.
"Toby Flood controlled the game really well, the forward pack was immense and that won us the game at the end."
