Celebrations timed rugby team out

Bizarre? Maybe. Apparently not.

You’d certainly have to say the circumstances in which Saturday’s Wairarapa Bush senior reserve match between Masterton Red Star and Martinborough finished were unusual.

With time up, Martinborough were beating undefeated Masterton Red Star 20-14. But a Masterton Red Star try under the bar suddenly made it 20-19 with the conversion to come.

Only the fulltime whistle was blown before that kick was ever attempted and Martinborough declared 20-19 winners. Confused? So was Masterton Red Star coach Brent McGlashan. Unprecedented?

‘‘I actually thought the ref was taking the p***. This can’t be right, but he carried on with it,’’ McGlashan said.

Reports indicate a Martinborough player kicked the ball into an adjacent paddock, after the try was scored. What’s in no dispute is that the ecstatic Masterton Red Star reserves raced onto the field and ‘‘were highfiving and everything, so there was a bit of ruckus,’’ McGlashan said.

Teams have 90 seconds to take a conversion once a try has been scored and, between the missing match ball and the minor pitch invasion, Masterton Red Star were deemed to have exceeded that.

‘‘The referee was a reasonably experienced fellow and up to that stage, from all sides, people were quite confident in his rulings and he has established himself pretty well within that grade and has done premier rugby as well,’’ Wairarapa Bush referees spokesman Peter Debney said.

‘‘He just felt one team celebrated the win before they’d actually secured it and had wasted time and that it was outside the time parameters by quite some time and he then disallowed the kick.

‘‘At some point in time you have to draw a line.’’

In this instance, Debney said the referee had drawn it at a point in excess of two minutes.

The ball had been retrieved by then but to no avail, McGlashan said.

‘‘We weren’t happy with it but, at the end of the day, we bombed four or five tries. We’ve just got to take it on the chin.’’

The one consolation was that the team has an opportunity to atone. With no semifinals in that grade, Masterton Red Star have still qualified for this Saturday’s competition final.

‘‘The boys are gutted but it’s not so much the loss as how they lost, because they feel they won the game,’’ McGlashan said.

‘‘The kick was right in front of the posts, we’d scored underneath, we’d won the game. You know, the boys were elated, they were high-fiving each other.

‘‘There was a bit of mouthiness going on between the teams, but there always is at this level.

‘‘We get on well with them and even after the game the two teams came together and did a big cheer together; there’s no animosity there with Martinborough at all.’’