WHY I RAN OFF

Blunder ref feared an angry scene with Scots EXCLUSIVE

REFEREE Craig Joubert raced off the field at Twickenham to avoid the threat of an ugly, public confrontation with Scotland players incensed by his controversial last-minute penalty decision.

The South African official was widely pilloried for dashing down the tunnel immediately after blowing the final whistle last Sunday when he wrongly awarded Australia their match-winning kick in the last few minutes of the World Cup quarter-final.

Brett Gosper, World Rugby’s chief executive, further inflamed the alreadytense situation during a radio interview when he joked that Joubert may have ‘needed the bathroom’.

World Rugby confirmed on Monday night that the referee had been wrong to award the penalty, but there was no explanation from the governing body for the official’s sharp exit.

However, Sportsmail understands Joubert informed his employers that he ran for the changing-room after he detected a mood of tension in the

aftermath of Bernard Foley’s winning kick for the Wallabies. He sensed the potential for angry scenes on the pitch in front of a huge global audience, so he decided to leave quickly as a means of defusing what had turned into a tricky situation. Yet his actions only served to intensify the simmering controversy and resulting unrest. Meanwhile, World Rugby now finds itself in the firing line with many in the game unhappy at their lack of support for Joubert. Australian rugby legend David Campese said the person responsible for World Rugby’s statement on the referee’s wrong decision ‘should be shot’. Campese, who was clearly annoyed at the under-fire Joubert being put in that position, said: ‘I have been in games where referees have made real blunders but whoever put that statement out saying the referee got it wrong should be shot as that is saying the referees are bad. ‘One of the biggest problems in world rugby is trying to get referees. And if they’re going to continue to cop abuse every game it will mean we will wake up one day and there will be no referees. ‘And if that happens, then obviously we haven’t got a game. ‘I would hate to be a referee. There is so much happening. They are human and they do make mistakes.’ Former England hooker Brian Moore echoed those sentiments and said: ‘This is a really pernicious element to what World Rugby has done. They’ve taken all these angles and all these slow-mos and they’ve said: “We’ve looked at all these things and we’ve decided you should have decided that”. ‘If he (Joubert) had been there at the World Rugby meeting he could have said: “I didn’t have those benefits of the replays. You’re telling me I should have made a decision on evidence which I haven’t got and, by the way, you said I wasn’t allowed to have the TMO. So what do you expect me to do?”. It’s really bad.’ Australian head coach Michael Cheika — whose side now face Argentina in Sunday’s semi-final — also issued a strong condemnation of World Rugby’s handling of the situation. ‘I genuinely feel for Craig Joubert,’ said Cheika. ‘It’s so unfair. No other referee has had this stuff put out there like that and he’s a very good referee. ‘I would have liked my mates to back me up a little more on the odd occasion, if you know what I mean. I feel for him.’ The SRU have yet to make any comment on the situation.