Another week and another couple of contentious incidents that have provoked a huge amount of debate.
They both happened in the Rugby Championship clash between Australia and South Africa in Adelaide. Let’s start with the one involving the opposing scrum-halves which resulted in a yellow card for Faf de Klerk, which I thought was harsh.
What Faf tried to do was knock the ball backwards out of Nic White’s hands, which he is quite entitled to do. He was onside at the scrum and on his feet, so he’s entitled to knock White’s arm causing him to lose the ball forward which would become a knock-on. Or he can knock the ball backwards towards his own side to try and gain possession. All completely legal actions, as the ball was out of the scrum and he was onside.
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What he got wrong was when he tried to knock the ball back, White by this time had it up to his chest/head area, so Faf ended up catching him in the face. In my view, it was a complete accident. I would have penalised it because he missed the ball and caught him in the face, but just a penalty, nothing more, because Faf is not trying to hit Nic White in the face, in my view.
What you have then is White milking it all and trying to get Faf de Klerk sent off in some shape or form. He was trying to get him sanctioned by rolling around. To me, that goes against rugby values. Of all the big hits Nic White has taken, I don’t think that action by Faf would have caused that response to happen.
What I would have done is your first offence is De Klerk getting it wrong, completely accidental, no intent, it’s a penalty. What you have then is a totally unacceptable reaction from Nic White and against the values of the game. So I would have reversed the penalty and penalised him for his actions. I would have said to him ‘You are not in the theatre, you are on the rugby field, where are your rugby values? You can’t behave like that.’
Rugby can’t take the moral high ground and complain about footballers rolling around and pretending to be hurt because it does happen in rugby. It doesn’t happen often, but, as we saw in this game, rugby players can sometimes behave in not a rugby way. When it does happen, rugby tends to deal with it. Unfortunately in this instance, that didn’t happen. That was the disappointing thing for me. Nic White shouldn’t have got away with it and should have had a good stern talking to about rugby values, at least, even if the referee decided against penalising him.
The other big incident from that game in Adelaide was Wallaby winger Marika Koroibete denying his opposite number Makazole Mapimpi a try just before half-time. It was definitely a try-saving incident and you can read about it here. I’m not sure it was a try-saving tackle.
These are tough ones and it’s certainly got people split on opinion on it. For South African supporters, it’s a shoulder charge, while for Australian fans it’s a great tackle. I have spoken to a few referees about it. Most of them are on a shoulder charge, a couple think it’s ok.
I think a lot of people have got caught up in the romance of a try-saving tackle, a little bit like JPR Williams’ shoulder charge on French wing Jean-Francois Goudon back in 1976. But that would have been at least a yellow card for JPR and a penalty try now.
I have looked at it many times and I’m finding it difficult to see this as anything but an illegal tackle by Koroibete. To me, he leads with his shoulder and his arm is tucked down by his side. There’s not an attempt to wrap, for me.
What happens in a legal tackle is as the shoulder makes contact your arm then, in that split second, is simultaneously wrapping at the same time. Your arm is out ready to grasp and as the shoulder hits the arm clamps around.
But, if you look at the moment when Koroibete’s shoulder makes contact, his arm is down by his side. It’s not in an action or an attempt to wrap. That is the key. I can’t see a simultaneous wrap with the hit of the shoulder and that’s why I think it’s foul play.
He’s gone in with shoulder first and it should be a penalty and a yellow card. You are probably looking at a penalty try as well. It’s not the type of tackle I would like to see happening in every game.
It’s been reported that the TMO carried out a quick check at the time and decided the tackle was legal. Now I was concerned when this kind of soft TMO check was brought in a while back.
The problem you had is pretty much everyone was complaining there were too many stoppages in the game, with the TMOs coming in for this and that. Matches were lasting two hours. So what they brought in then was a policy where the TMO would be checking things in the background and coming in and telling the referee either play on or there is foul play there.
To me, that is a complete disaster. The referee on the field needs to make these decisions. This shouldn’t be a TMO glancing at this and making a decision. The referee has to look at something like this and make the decision himself.
With all respect to the TMOs, your best officials are on the field. To me, it has to be a refereeing decision. You can’t have TMOs deciding ‘Yeah, that’s ok for me’. I don’t get what this soft TMO check is. It’s nonsense. Where is the game going?
We need the officials on the field to make the decisions, preferably in real time, but, as I know just too well, you can’t see everything and this is when technology is used via the TMO. But it should be the referee making the final decision on the field, not the man in the truck.
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