"This is Not Soccer"
 

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The man is a machine.

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The Texas saying of "One Riot, One Ranger" certainly applies to Rugby as well.

I take it that in the clip first posted, the problem was at :09, where the player was distracting the ref by indicating that a certain player was tying up the ball. We don't know whether that player had been a PITA previously during that game by doing similarly.

Do you really like that style of refereeing? Does the talking-to not say to that player and the world, "I'm letting this guy get in my head."?

New video:

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Speaking as an official from another sport, if I was the lone guy in the middle of those behemoths, I'd wanna establish alpha male credibility ASAP :)

Although the complete lack of any kind of reaction from the player after being dressed down like that is astounding. No player in a north american sport would 'take' that without something else to say.

What the players respect is not alpha male credibility, but just plain credibiity. I've never seen a rugby ref intimidated or looking like he needed to be intimidated except insofar as he wasn't sure of himself. If you were indeed an official from another sport perceived as a newbie reffing a rugby match, you might be in that situation.