WHAT THE KEY PLAYERS SAID
STEVE HANSEN: ‘ Straight away you see the young fella who caught the ball, he knew “S***, I shouldn’t be catching this” so he chucked it away. If romain had gone with his instincts he would have made the right decision.’
WARREN GATLAND: ‘I thought it was a pen to us, I thought Kieran read jumped into Liam Williams. I don’t think he had any chance of getting his hand on that. I thought he’d hit the player in the air.’
SAM WARBURTON: ‘ I just asked him to check for the accidental offside. They order a penalty and it’s worth asking the question.’
THE LAW’S CONFUSED
Law 11.6 ( a): ‘ When an offside player cannot avoid being touched by the ball, he is accidentally offside. If the player’s team gains an advantage from this, a scrum is formed with the opposing team throwing in the ball.’
Law 11.7: ‘When a player knocks- on and an offside team- mate next plays the ball, the offside player is liable to sanction if playing the ball prevented an opponent from gaining an advantage.’
The sanction is a penalty. So those two laws seem contradictory.