Luke Pearce is quickly gaining a reputation as one of rugby union’s greatest referees, officiating some of the world’s top matches and competitions.
Along with our partners at ACME whistles, we caught up with Luke to find out about how the ‘on mic’ law change featuring at this year’s Autumn Internationals is enhancing and simplifying the game for spectators.
“I think it’s brilliant,” he said.
“It’s the one big step forward that our sport needed to make, especially for the spectators who are paying money to sit in the stands because we were missing that middle link.
“You can sit on the sofa at home and listen to everything the ref is saying, but if you’re in the stadium, you can’t hear anything. So, I think it’s a great middle match and I think it’s gone down brilliantly.”
When asked how the change has been received by referees, Luke said: “We’re all delighted with how the process has come about because we’re helping sell our decisions which in the end hopefully means less grief from the fans because they understand.
“They may not agree, but they understand why we’re giving a certain outcome.”
As with all changes to the rugby laws, there needs to be a settling in period where any niggles are ironed out and the on mic rule has highlighted some stadium limitations when it comes to the technology needed to facilitate its implementation.
“Every stadium has different PA systems,” Pearce explains. “We always need to check ahead of each game that it works exactly how we need it to, for example, once we make the signal, we need to know how much delay there is before it gets shot out to the world.
“There’s nothing worse than it working sometimes and not working others or kicking in halfway through because that would work against what we’re trying to achieve from it.
“But there’s no doubt that it’s a massive step forward and I think the more we can do this, the better we, as refs, will come across to the general public.”
The on mic rule was trialled in the 2021 Rugby Championship in Australia ahead of it being introduced at this year’s Autumn Internationals.
“It’s something we, as refs, have been waiting for for a while,” he adds. “The biggest drawback at the moment is just the levels of technology around the stadiums, but as people see how much positivity it’s bringing to the game, I think that will be tweaked and improved to make sure it does work.”
Regarding public feedback to the on mic rule, Luke reiterates that this has, so far, been positive thanks to an increased understanding of the decisions the officials are making.
“I’ve banged this drum for many a year,” he said. “If people can understand why a referee is making a decision, the agreement is neither here nor there, but they can follow it. And if it’s not followable, that’s where we end up getting in trouble because that opens the door for every opinion to come in, whether right or wrong.
“I think that it’s made a big difference to people being able to follow that decision.
“November has gone really well in terms of refereeing, and it could be linked to that transparency regarding our decision making.
“Whether people see that we’re moving on from the days of just slagging the referee off after a game, or not, it seems that we’ve taken a good step forward and it seems like we’re now focusing on the games and the scores and the teams more than the ref in the middle which is important.”
Referees being able to publicly share their decision-making process seems to be a step towards greater support for referees, according to Pearce who went on to say:
“The beauty of our sport is that it was and will always be a grey sport. We can’t make it black and white. And the problem with decisions is people will think in black or white.
“So, we’re working on bringing them round to the world of grey, which means that we’ve just got to explain to our best ability why we’re giving a certain decision, and I think the best refs explain it really well.
“When you’re supporting your team, you may not agree with outcomes against them, but if you can understand why the ref is making a certain decision, why they’re doing something, I think it works really well.
“Hopefully that will move the game forward and we can enable the general public to follow what we’re doing even more.
“It is a fine balance to tread though because we want people to understand what we’re doing and we want to make the best decision possible in that moment and in that game, but what we don’t want then is to have to justify it, Monday to Friday and explain why we’re doing this and why we’re doing that because I think that goes against the fundamentals of the sport and how it all first came about.
“That being said, we’re getting some decent traction and good progress at the moment.”
Pearce admits that the inclusion of the on mic law has made him consider his delivery of communication and he explains how the process now works for referees, saying:
“We will make a decision, whether that’s to speak to our touch judge and decide to refer it to a TMO and all of that is off air. It’s on the TV, but it’s off the mic to the stadium.
“We still have the same ability to make discussions. There’s a technician on the side of the pitch who, once we make the TV signal, ramps the volume up.
“We understand there’s a slight delay, so we’ve got to be quite clear in our communication about the question we’re asking and why.
“The mic then gets turned down so we can have the discussion with our team and not limit our ability to make the best decision.
“And then once we come to an answer, the camera comes back to the ref, the technician ramps the volume back up and we then explain why we’re making that decision.
“We’ve always done that to the TV anyway so it’s not a great deal of difference, but it is weird the first time you do it and you hear your voice being echoed around the stadium.”
The change is designed to engage spectators, making referee decisions easier to follow as well as being clearly explained.
“When the on mic law was trialled back in 2021 I noticed that when Angus Gardner was explaining his decisions, the crowd went silent because they wanted to listen to what the decision was.
“It then became followable and was well explained so everyone went with it and I think that’s the example that we need to try and follow and go with if we’re going to make this a thing of the future.
“It’d be great to bring this law in domestically, but we’re working with very different technology in terms of the premiership and then the European Cup, and how that transfers down to smaller or less modern stadiums who aren’t as well equipped to facilitate it is something we need to consider.
“I feel it is important in rugby to try and be consistent in our approach at all levels of the professional end of the game.
“So, whatever changes we make, whatever we do to make something positive, let’s make that consistent at International, European Cup, Premiership and Super Rugby so everyone watching professional rugby is watching the same thing rather than dipping in and dipping out of certain stuff, which I think sometimes makes the game confusing to follow.”
In terms of the adoption of the on mic law on a wider scale, Luke explains that World Rugby will need to assess the benefit versus spend, but he feels it can only be a positive for future international rugby games, saying: “I think with the impact this has had it will be a huge step backwards to not progress because I think everyone can see the benefit in it.
“I’ve got no idea of cost implications, but if it does cost a small amount, it is definitely money worth spending because it’s taken the public with us rather than against us.”
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