By Griff
September 14 2005

Ashley Rowden is, arguably, the most experienced Premiership referee of all time. He's certainly overseen the most games of those referees who still officiate. He came to Sunbury to give us an insight into the art.

Some people have bottle. Real courage. Cojones. Ashley Rowden, or "Ash" as he's known, is one of these people. Last year, he oversaw a match at the MadStad. It was April 24th 2004 and it was our last home match, against Bath. A win would have left us safe for another year, a loss would have left us hoping for others to fail or having to get a result in the frosty North at Newcastle the following week.

You only need to remember what last season was like to know what the result was. Irish failed to make their visitors pay for their mistakes and made a fair few of their own for good measure. Luckily the end of the season panned out O.K. and we're still here but the sheer single-minded terror does strange things and we, as a message-board, lashed out at the one person who had to be guilty - the ref.

It started innocently enough with OxonRob telling Ash he'd had a mare. Others joined the party and eventually Mr Rowden himself started addressing the points raised.

Last night Ash attempted to justify his decisions, with the help of his own DVD copy of the match in what was a lively, entertaining and fun evening. He showed that a lot of the stick he came in for was unjustified and plain one-eyed. No surprise there - that's what we do. He did so, however, in such a way that you didn't feel he was scoring points, merely explaining his job. It was a great evening. I won't report any of his "material" as Ash is a funny man and I suspect will make a good living as an after-dinner speaker when he hangs up his yellow, red and purple shirts.

There were, in the main, four incidents that caused people to question Ash's ability (and parentage):

Incident 1: The Delon Armitage "Try"

My match report only briefly mentions this. Delon streaked down the right-wing, right in front of the East stand drummers, and was tackled close to the line. He appeared to cross the try-line and touch-line and hit the corner-flag at the same time. I have to admit at the time I thought it should have been a line-out. Mr Rowden asked his namesake Ashley Rose, who was running touch, what had happened. Mr Rose, who was closest and in a great position to call it, said Delon's elbow hit the flag first. Result - 22m drop-out to Bath.

Mr Rowden was keen to point out that he did not, as some thought, over-rule his touch judge. The DVD backed him up on this, he simply asked the question and got an answer. The video-evidence was less than clear on Delon's positioning so we can't say it "proved" anything but I'd be inclined, as Ashley was on the day, to go with the experienced touch-judge on the spot.

Incident 2: Barry's Deliberate Knock-On

During a counter-attack by Bath, with the visitors passing the ball cleanly and threatening to cut-loose a fast-running Barry Everitt managed to get a hand onto the ball. It clearly, from the video, went forward and should have been called a deliberate knock-on and the resultant penalty, pretty much smack-bang on the centre spot, would likely have resulted in 3 points to Bath. Ashley puts his hands up to this and admits his mistake. In mitigation, his view was blocked, play was going very fast and neither TJ chose to alert him to it. The end result was about 40 yards gained by Irish, who then failed to capitalise.

Incident 3: The Belly Knock-On

This one I did report on, and to be honest I stand by it. From the East it was clear, having see the video (taken from the West) Mr R couldn't have seen it. Bell was tackled with the ball held high and as he came down he landed on it with his chest and it flew forward, he then recovered it in one slick move. Mr Rowden, nor his touch-judges saw this and you wouldn't expect Duncan to bring it to their attention. It, like the one above, is one of those things. Referees are human, unless we fill the place with cameras and take days to play the game, reviewing each incident as it happens on video to get the absolutely correct call, you will get these incidents.

The telling thing here is that from Barry's we got nothing, from Duncan's Bath scored a try. If we could, with full hindsight, get to pick, I think we'd probably choose for Ash to have spotted them both. This would have left the game level at the end (assuming Barclay had kicked their pen) and we'd have been considerably happier. The refs, though, aren't there to make us happy.

Incident 4: Malone Outside the 22

This happened fairly close to the end, Irish were throwing everything at Bath to try and get the win but the visitors were holding firm. Chris Malone made a clearance kick straight to touch and everyone I spoke to said he was "well outside" the 22 when he did it. I didn't see it, I didn't report it, I'm very glad because I'm as one-eyed as the next man and I, like everyone in the stadium execpt "Our Ash", would have called it a mistake.

The video showed Malone to be a good yard inside the 22 when he made contact with the ball. The only thing I can suggest is that he did put a good jump into it and, the video didn't show, he probably landed a fair way outside the 22 after the kick. Whatever the mitigation the blind idiot Rowden (as we love to call him) got it right.

We all know that referees will, at times, miss things and get things wrong. The vast majority of the time they get it spot on and without them there would be no game. Welcome to sport ladies and gentlemen, buckle yourselves in it will be a bumpy ride.

Ashley Rowden showed last night that he is a top bloke, a true rugby-man and a real hero. To quote the great Louis Walsh - "I liked him". Let's give him and his fellow referees the benefit of the doubt next time. We'll only look really silly if we don't.

Thanks go to the LISC for organising. Huge thanks to Ash for a great evening. Good luck in your search for the perfect pre-game warm-up...