Referee Owens cast as villain in video nasty
THERE was unrest on both sides about the officiating at Twickenham, with England enraged by one key decision against them and New Zealand bemoaning the impact of big-screen replays.
Welsh referee Nigel Owens angered the hosts and the majority of the sell-out crowd by promptly awarding a try to All Black fly-half Aaron Cruden in the first half, despite TV footage showing he may have been short of the line and guilty of a double movement.
There were plenty of referrals after that, so England head coach Stuart lancaster was frustrated
‘They are in danger of turning rugby into NFL’
that one wasn’t requested at such a pivotal moment. ‘We went to the TMO quite a lot of times but not on that occasion, which we probably need to have a chat about,’ he said.
Farcically, when the Irish TMO, Simon McDowell, was asked for a ruling about the angry kick by Dane Coles which ultimately earned the Kiwi hooker a yellow card, he informed Owens there had been a kick but that a yellow card was not required. Yet, the referee, struggling to hear his colleague via his earpiece, watched the replays on the big screen, over-ruled McDowell and dispatched Coles.
Meanwhile, New Zealand coach Steve Hansen expressed alarm at what he regards as a creeping issue of home- biased replays governing official decisions after Charlie Faumuina’s 72nd-minute try was belatedly referred by Owens as Beauden Barrett was about to take the conversion.
‘My biggest concern is not the ref or TMO, it is that TV producers are starting to have an influence on the game,’ said Hansen.
‘It’s not on the away side, I might add. If something goes wrong we see a replay 10 times. The ref has not seen it, the touch judge has not seen it, the TMO has not seen it — we need to bring in a challenge so that if the coach or skipper has seen it, he can challenge. We don’t need a TV producer replaying it 100 times. That’s not the spirit of our game.
‘Referees will make mistakes just like players will, and sometimes those mistakes will cost you the game. You have to live with that and some days you will get the rub of the green.
‘The TV producers are starting to annoy me somewhat.’
New Zealand No 8 Kieran Read echoed his coach’s misgivings, adding: ‘If that’s the way they’re going to play it, it’s going to turn the game into NFL.
‘You want them to make the right decisions, so we have to use the technology that’s there, but they should make a decision and stick to it.’