In fairness RL, the cost of three extra Ryanair flights from Scotland to Ireland is not going to break the bank. I understand that it would cost money but the long term benefits would be worth it. I don't know how many times this issue has come up, and it will keep coming up. Reflects badly on the league and makes it look amateurish IMO.

Seriously amateurish. This really annoys me. Just bit the bullet and suck up the cost for the better of the league.

In fairness RL, the cost of three extra Ryanair flights from Scotland to Ireland is not going to break the bank. I understand that it would cost money but the long term benefits would be worth it. I don't know how many times this issue has come up, and it will keep coming up. Reflects badly on the league and makes it look amateurish IMO.

I agree completely, but I'm just playing devils advocate. 

In fairness though, the costs would be more than just a cheap ryanair flight in most cases - hotels,  ground transport, expenses etc would all add up.

I suspect there is a reason - cost.

In fairness RL, the cost of three extra Ryanair flights from Scotland to Ireland is not going to break the bank. I understand that it would cost money but the long term benefits would be worth it. I don't know how many times this issue has come up, and it will keep coming up. Reflects badly on the league and makes it look amateurish IMO.

No reason why they cannot institute teams of officials and fly the four over instead of the one.

I suspect there is a reason - cost.

It would be a help to the poor bastards (refs) if the touchjudges were neutral and could make calls from time to time its a sorry state of affairs when this is not the case:

Referee: Marius Mitrea (FIR)
Assistant Referees: Leo Colgan, Peter Roche (both IRFU)
Citing Commissioner: John Cole (IFRU)
TMO: Dermot Moloney (IRFU)
 

It is a farce really isn't it? They cannot involve themselves too much or it will seem like Irish favouring the Irish (not that that happens much when Connacht is involved). The PRO12 really need to change that policy. No reason why they cannot institute teams of officials and fly the four over instead of the one.

OK it was his first game at this level,they all have to start sometime. The positives are that he can only get better. He will watch the video and improve (I hope).

Agree with that BN2... both sets of players were slow on rolling from the ruck, and he was a little quick on the whistle at times. His decisions were a little rushed IMO and as was said earlier this could be from trying to stamp authority.

The good point was that he communicated pretty well with the players, and was (I think anyways) balanced. That is very important and I hope to see the fella back in the SG once he has a few more games under the belt.

It would be a help to the poor bastards (refs) if the touchjudges were neutral and could make calls from time to time its a sorry state of affairs when this is not the case:

Referee: Marius Mitrea (FIR)
Assistant Referees: Leo Colgan, Peter Roche (both IRFU)
Citing Commissioner: John Cole (IFRU)
TMO: Dermot Moloney (IRFU)
 

Agree with that BN2... both sets of players were slow on rolling from the ruck, and he was a little quick on the whistle at times. His decisions were a little rushed IMO and as was said earlier this could be from trying to stamp authority.

The good point was that he communicated pretty well with the players, and was (I think anyways) balanced. That is very important and I hope to see the fella back in the SG once he has a few more games under the belt.

It was a hard game to ref in fairness with the conditions and plenty of mistakes on both sides but he certainly didn't help the flow of the game and added to the frustration in the crowd. Seemed to edge towards Connacht near the end with some decisions in fairness. Done and dusted now, hopefully he will benefit from the experience. We had a good win but we have enough of our own problems to sort out for Friday.

so true, the best refs are ones you dont notice. If we lost that game we would all blame the ref. If we had a good ref and we lost then it would only be the players fault and we would talk about what went wrong. I cant imagine that a ref would go out and be one sided even less if it was away team. Just crap ref

There's an old saying: Refs aren't biased, fans are.

Refs have it tough. We forgive players for dropped passes and other mistakes at the beginning of the season with the excuse that they're rusty and need to sort the cobwebs out, but we expect 100% precision from a ref from the first minute of the first match. It ain't easy.

I think the ref was expecting to be bullied by two experienced teams and went in with a view of being pedantic and over-eager to stamp his authority on the game. But the game is about the teams, not the ref, so he'll have to ease up a bit in future. The best ref is the one you don't notice.

He was poor, but he was poor for both teams. I know everyone has to start somewhere, but he wouldn't have been given Munster v Leinster as his first ever Pro12 match. We should expect better from a professional organisation.

I thought he was very very quick to blow for holding on or not rolling away. I suppose we are going to have most of the B squad refs until a nice bit after the world cup is over

he is the worse i seen and there have been plenty going to the sportsground over the years. After the first few scrum he didnt want them anymore. He was giving scarlets over a min to throw the ball into the line out and forgot to stop the clock from time to time. Dont get me started on the sin bining

I don't know about biased (just about evened out in the end), but he was definitely atrocious.  I saw somewhere else that this was his first ever match at the professional level.  If this is true, it explains a lot.

:-X was it just me or was the ref yesterday v biased (refing scrums etc/ binning swifty despite him being blindsided etc etc), scarlets were v cyncial (off the ball/ timewasting)