Newcastle’s Dean Richards faces charge over referee comments

Newcastle’s director of rugby, Dean Richards, has been issued with a misconduct charge for criticising referee Christophe Ridley after Sunday’s 15-14 Gallagher Premiership defeat by Exeter.

The Falcons back row, Callum Chick, was shown a red card for a high tackle midway through the first half of a game that was decided by Joe Simmonds’ late penalty. Richards believed the sending-off was a hasty call by Ridley, claiming: “We’ve reached a moment in rugby where officials are making quick decisions rather than the correct decision.”

The former England No 8 has been charged with conduct prejudicial to the interests of the union and the game and will face an independent disciplinary panel on Wednesday evening.

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A Rugby Football Union statement said that Richards’ comments “undermined the authority and questioned the integrity of the match official”.

Chick was due to face his own hearing over the red card offence on Tuesday evening.

The charge laid against Richards comes amid a clampdown on behaviour towards officials by the game’s governing bodies. In November, following World Rugby’s two-month ban for Rassie Erasmus after his rant during the Lions tour last summer, the injured Bath and England wing Anthony Watson was handed a suspended one-match ban for criticising a referee’s decision on social media.

During Watson’s hearing, the panel heard from the Rugby Football Referees’ Union which outlined the acute shortage of match officials at grassroots level following the pandemic-enforced layoff exacerbated by “many of our members leaving the game having become disillusioned with, amongst other things, persistent challenging of their decisions.”

This week will also see a potentially seismic day in the future of the Championship which underpins the domestic top flight in the Premiership. The RFU council is due to meet to discuss the future structure of the competition, with proposals being considered that would include Premiership reserve sides in a new-look league. Ealing Trailfinders and Doncaster Rovers are also poised to discover if their grounds will be deemed suitable to make them eligible for promotion to the Premiership.