One of the major talking points over this past season has been the captaincy for Ireland. Over the past season it seems that Irish and more especially Leinster players have had a touchy relationships with referees.
It more than likely stems from the Johnny Sexton debacle after the Champions Cup Final in 2023 where Sexton confronted the refereeing team after La Rochelle had beaten Leinster even though he wasn't playing himself.
Then this season James Ryan has come into a couple of issues with referees for Leinster this season as co-captain alongside Garry Ringrose.
There was an incident with referee Chris Busby during the interpro derby against Munster last November and then during Leinster's Champions Cup pool stage match against La Rochelle, English referee Matthew Carley flat out refused to speak to Ryan and would only speak to Ringrose.
It's not a great look and from what it seems on Saturday, Ryan's Leinster teammate Caelan Doris ran into some of the same difficulties with referee Luke Pearce after James Lowe's controversially disallowed try.
Doris had taken over from Peter O'Mahony after O'Mahony was substituted and after the decision to chalk off Lowe's try, Doris had tried to discuss his sides point of view of the incident and how Ronán Kelleher appeared to be neck-rolled in the ruck but Pearce wasn't having any of it and batted Doris away.
Ferris Believes That Captaincy Takes Away From Caelan Doris' Performance
Being a captain is not an easy job, you have to tackle a lot of responsibility on the pitch as both a leader in your actions and being able to have an almost politician-like rapport with referees and be able to discuss decisions on the pitch during some of the most tense moments of the match.
Former Ireland and Ulster flanker Stephen Ferris spoke about how he believes the extra responsibility as captain takes away from Doris' game and how perhaps he's a player that doesn't need the armband.
I've seen people come out during the week in the media and say that they felt like the captaincy doesn't take away from his game.
I would disagree with that, in terms of maybe not this game in the last half an hour for Ireland but certainly for Leinster in the URC semifinal, I think he missed a lot of tackles, yeah he's brilliant with the ball in hand but he just didn't seem to have his finger on the pulse like he usually does and he's probably the most consistent player for Ireland over the last couple of seasons and hardly misses a game.
Even in those games when he missed a few tackles, the captaincy does weigh you down ever so slightly, of course it's going to weigh you down ever so slightly because you have that responsibility.
So, is he the player that you just let loose and don't give him that responsibility so he can just go and do his own thing? In my own opinion when he's been like that, that's when he plays his best rugby.
Ferris also spoke about the current state of the Irish captaincy room and questioned whether there's any real candidates to the calibre of some of the captains in recent past.
I hope to god he[Doris] is captain this weekend and has a brilliant game and answers a few questions that I might have but for me I think that is a sticking point not only in this moment of time but moving forward into the next couple of years, who's going to take this on?
We've had Brian O'Driscoll, we've had Paul O'Connell, Rory Best you know guys that are first name on the team sheet every single week, huge authority, huge experience, lots of respect and it didn't take away from their game whatsoever.
Ireland are obviously in a tough place at the moment off the back of a defeat and flaws are always magnified in defeat but it's certainly going to be an issue going forward for Andy Farrell and his team.
Whether it's James Ryan, Caelan Doris or anyone else who takes the captaincy from Peter O'Mahony when he moves on there needs to be someone who can step forward.
Being able to balance the line with the referee of asking questions and not giving out is a tightrope and it looks like Irish and Leinster players in particular have struggled to stay on the right side of referees.
