Luke Fitzgerald Says There’s No Place For Nigel Owens’ Behaviour In Rugby

Sorry Luke but we’re gonna have to disagree with you on this one.

Former Ireland and Leinster back Luke Fitzgerald says there’s no place in the game for Nigel Owens’ antics.

The Welsh referee has given us some wonderful highlights over the years with his brilliant one-liners and funny moments. That being said, it doesn’t effect how he referee’s the game and he is widely regarded as one of the very best officials in world rugby, and rightly so.

Fitzgerald however has called on Owens to to stop using one-liners and putdowns while officiating games.

“I don’t like it personally,” Luke Fitzgerald said on an episode of The Irish Independent’s Left Wing show.

“There was a clip with Cian Healy down in Thomond Park which I thought was a step too far. He shouldn’t be commentating on the game. His first focus is to make it a good spectacle, that he referees the game correctly.

“We’re heading into a dangerous territory for me. It’s a soccer thing, when you have everyone on the pitch talking to the referee, the referee trying to be too smart, trying to be friendly with the players. I’d rather he just refereed the game well.”

“The first job of the referee is to almost be anonymous and that’s the first duty for him. He is taken seriously, he’s a brilliant referee, no doubt about that.

“I just think those kind of things are disappointing and it’s disrespectful to the players who are putting in a huge amount of effort.

“There’s no place for it in the game. You can’t actually speak back. It’s almost like a situation where someone is on a podium having a go at someone in the crowd. It’s wrong because there’s no platform to come back.”

What do you think of Fitzgerald’s comments?