A lot of us would remember Sir Bill McLaren as the voice of rugby, but since he passed away Eddie Butler had certainly taken over that mantle. Not just as the voice of rugby in Wales, but of the Six Nations as a whole.
He had the ability to put the right words in the right context and the right tone, not just for a rugby match but for everything he did, like the wonderful tribute he put together for the late Phil Bennett. His voice was one you could listen talk about pretty much everything and anything.
In a sense, he's very similar to Huw Edwards. His work in covering the death of the Queen has been a credit to Huw and to us here in Wales. We were lucky to have Huw and Eddie.
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Eddie never shied away from asking the questions that needed to be asked, but he did it in a very respectful way. You never heard him comment directly on the poor performance by a player or even a referee. He would give you the information you needed to make your own judgement on matters.
I think that's why he was hugely respected for what he did. He was held in such high regard in the rugby world. I was shocked and saddened when I heard the news. I worked with him on a few occasions. He was a lovely, lovely man.
He's always been there in Welsh rugby. When I was growing up, he was playing for Pontypool and captaining Wales. Then he was presenting Scrum V and doing commentary. From a young age, he's always been there in some capacity.
He made viewing a rugby game enjoyable, like Bill McLaren did. That's a heck of a skill to do. However, his voice and memory will always live on in those clips of old matches and the countless other pieces of work he did. He'll never be forgotten.
Elsewhere in the world of rugby, there's been a fair bit of noise about the decision of Mathieu Raynal to award a scrum against Australia after Bernard Foley failed to restart the game from a penalty late on in the Bledisloe Cup clash with New Zealand. Australia were holding on to a 37-34 lead when they were judged to have time-wasted in the final minute, allowing New Zealand to snatch victory - so understandably it was a big talking point.
But I think what people need to realise here is that the blame doesn't belong with the referee. You can have a different view on how the referee could have dealt with it differently, by stopping the clock or adding time back on.
I once added time back on in a European Cup final. I stopped the clock and said I was adding 20 seconds back on as one team was taking too long to take a kick to touch. However, that caused confusion as they couldn't change the stadium clock back and some players and fans ended up thinking we'd played longer than we should have.
With Raynal, he gave a clear warning to the player. He then stopped the clock and said that when he restarted it, we needed to get on with things. However, it went on for another 10 seconds. Maybe he could have dealt with it differently, but he did deal with it.
The only person at fault here is Bernard Foley for not listening to the referee when the rest of his backline clearly were. People might say there were penalties in the first-half that took too long. They might have a point as some scrums and penalties take too long to set up, but players aren't deliberately wasting time in the first 70 minutes of a game.
So as a referee, you just tell them to speed things up. However, in the final moments, it probably does become deliberate and you become more aware of it. The lesson here is not for the referee to learn what he could do better next time, it's for the players to realise that this sort of thing can happen.
Someone said to me that they hoped this sort of thing wouldn't happen in a World Cup final. Hopefully it doesn't, but that would have to be because players are now aware that they will be blown up for an infringement. If a referee tells you to stop wasting time, players now know for certain that they have to get on with it.
Some people, like former All Blacks fly-half Andrew Mehrtens, have called for the clock to be stopped at every scrum, lineout and penalty - with the halves being reduced to 30 minutes. But I'm not sure that's the answer.
I don't think there's really any time-wasting in the first-half. Players might take their time, but they're not running the clock down. That's manageable by what is in the laws though. What you need as referees, and they'll be more aware of this now, is to be stricter with players who are taking too long.
I don't think you need to add time on or change the laws or the game will only get longer. Some last nearly two hours now. You just need to tell players to get on with it and if they don't, you have your ammunition to do more. I do think when a scrum collapses and the referee goes to speak the players, he should put time off.
But for penalties and setting up lineouts, I think it's just a case of speeding things up without stopping the clock and actually applying the laws that are already in place. It can be dealt with by just refereeing the laws.
Talking of matches that were overly long, the west Wales derby between the Scarlets and Ospreys went on for 100 minutes, but I thought it was a typical Welsh derby. There were lots of talking points and I certainly know what it's like to be a Welsh referee in the middle of that.
But whether you agreed with the decisions or not, I think you can come away from it having enjoyed a thrilling Welsh derby. Hopefully that bodes well for the rest of the season.
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