Ref handled match badly

There was no doubt on Saturday that Germany were the stronger side on the day. Malta lost the World Cup qualifier despite the wonderful support of the crowd and the electric atmosphere at the Hibs Ground.

However, rugby often throws up harsh results which bear no resemblance to the competitiveness of a game. In his aftermatch comments, a top German rugby federation official gave credit to the Maltese for giving his team a very hard match. Until half-time Malta had been unlucky not to score at least twice.

In hindsight, the scoreline should definitely have been much closer, but, unfortunately, the debatable refereeing had a negative effect on the Maltese gameplan.

In order to succeed, the much lighter Malta side needed a fast flowing game with continuous play. Sadly, the Czech referee failed completely to allow such movement and fell into the trap of allowing the Germans to smother the rucks and mauls with their superior weight and strength, killing the ball again and again, in a way that, in my opinion, better refs would never have permitted.

This allowed them to slowly wear down the smaller Maltese until they could no longer stand up to the pressure.

Furthermore, when the Germans finally began to launch running attacks on the burst, there were occasions when the receiving player took the ball ahead of the giving player - a blatant forward pass which was never punished.

At the start of the match, the referee penalised Malta's fly-half for crossing behind his centre, but then allowed the Germans to commit exactly the same movement during the match, once so obvious that the front player actually raised his arms in admission and appeared amazed that his team were not penalised.

One move saw a German tackler punch the ball out of a Maltese hand to where another German player was five yards ahead of him to pick up and run many metres - a clear offside which went unpunished.

In the first half, at least three Germans, the hooker, tighthead prop and blind side flanker, should have been penalised and yellow carded for repeated infringements in the scrum, maul or lineouts. But it seemed that neither the referee nor the touch judges knew enough about forward play to be able to spot the fouls. Admittedly, a Maltese player should also have had a yellow card.

In the second half, Whitney was justifiably yellow-carded and sin binned which did not help the Maltese team's stamina. But another "spear tackle" offence by a German went unnoticed when he, too, should have earned a sin bin.

Then the match was held up while the German hooker was given several minutes to recover from cramp, which should not be counted as an injury so play should continue, giving the heavier Germans time to recover their breath.

The previous day the referee had commented that he had never played club rugby himself... unfortunately this became obvious during the game.

In many ways, I do not enjoy writing such criticisms of a match official. It could appear to be sour grapes or excuses but the Maltese team deserve far more praise for their efforts than the 43-0 score might suggest.

Many of the early backline moves were beautifully composed and caused much distress to the German defence by angled running and well timed passing. The Maltese pack harried and tackled as a unit.

I write this as an ex-player and referee, and it may be that from the position I enjoyed in the stands I could see a lot better than the referee.

It is certain that rugby is a difficult game to handle and that all refs can commit an error or two. But too many mistakes in an international match are unacceptable.