Lam: Refs must get help to improve

Connacht coach Pat Lam has demanded a radical overhaul of the structure and quality of refereeing in the RaboDirect Pro12.

Lam was fuming over Scottish referee Neil Paterson and his Welsh assistants after Connacht’s European ambitions suffered a blow in their 32-30 defeat at the Scarlets.

The Samoan believes the competition must follow the example of Super Rugby and centralise the match officials’ department, rather than having the four separate unions looking after their own referees.

“When I was in Super Rugby under SANZAR, all the referees came under the game manager, which is Lyndon Bray, and we got to be in touch with him via emails and talk about trends so people were accountable and people got dropped if they did not perform well,” said Lam.

“Here there are four different bosses and everyone warned me about it.”