BUT ‘ORIGINAL DECISION SHOULD HAVE STOOD’ – OUR EXPERT’S VERDICT
David Bodilly is a former Pro12 referee who also officiated at international level. Here, he gives his expert lowdown on the huge talking points surrounding Romain Poite’s decisions from the dramatic draw in Auckland...
“The ball went forward off a red player, Liam Williams, and was next played by a red player, Ken Owens” DAVID BODILLY
SO, it was Craig Joubert and Scotland versus Australia revisited in the closing moments at Eden Park. Remember that Twickenham incident?
At the identical moment of the World Cup quarter-final, Joubert thought he saw a knock-on from one Scotland player, John Hardie, picked up by another, Jon Welsh, who was in front of him and awarded a matchdeciding penalty.
Joubert was castigated by pundits and ex-Scottish players for his offside decision, not helping himself by running off the field at the end. He shouldn’t have done that, but under law he was absolutely correct to award the penalty.
As was Romain Poite when he initially penalised Lions hooker Ken Owens for catching the ball in front of Liam Williams, only to then change his mind and award a scrum instead.
New Zealand skipper Keiran Read was perplexed, complaining audibly, ‘No, there’s no such thing as accidental offside’.
Actually there is, I will give you a couple of examples in due course, but, in this particular example, Read was in fact correct in what he was saying.
You can’t catch the ball accidentally. You either get hold of it or you don’t.
There are three things at play here. One is the law, the second is Poite’s decision to change his mind and the third is the stupidity of the law and why it needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
Funny that last bit, because I remember saying exactly that in this column two years ago after the Joubert incident. Maybe, given it’s happened in an even more high-profile match, it will finally be looked at properly.
I certainly had sympathy for Owens because he didn’t know he was offside. However, the law is the law as it stands. The ball went forward off a red player, Liam Williams and was next played by another red player, Ken Owens, and that is a penalty.
In refereeing, we are told to ‘penalise the clear and obvious’, advice that is really important advice, given how many other thought processes go on in your head during a game, particularly one of this intensity.
From his position, his line of sight, Poite would have asked himself: ‘Did that come off red? Yes. Did red play the ball next? Yes. Penalty’.
As it would have been had Poite seen this sort of incident at any other stage of the game, wherever on the field, whoever it was being given against. This one, actually, was far more clear-cut than the Scottish incident. We had loads of slow-motion replays in that game, and even then it wasn’t totally certain whether the ball had come off a Scottish player or an Australian one.
At Eden Park, there was no doubt it was Williams, then Owens. Yet for some reason Poite changed his mind after studying video replays on the big screen. Why the U-turn? Well, we can only speculate on that, so best not to go into it. Let’s just deal in the facts as we know them.
You are only supposed to go to the TMO to check tries or acts of foul play, although World Rugby seem to have handed referees licence to use it for far more these days.
However, having decided there is no act of foul play, ie Williams was not taken out in the air, I can’t really see why Poite didn’t stick to his guns. Because the evidence of the ball being played next by Owens is crystal clear.
Perhaps he should have taken a leaf out of Jerome Garces’ book from the previous week in Wellington and been more firm. However,
Poite wasn’t and I had to smile at Read’s reaction to the official, almost asking if it’s okay to ‘have a deal.’
Read was having none of that. Hence his ‘There’s no such thing as accidental offside’ remark to Poite. In this particular instance, Read was right.
This brings me onto my third point, and, moving forward, the most relevant one, about this being a stupid law.
Put yourself in Ken Owens’ position. How is he supposed to know, in a split second, who has played the ball in those circumstances, Lions or New Zealand?
We had to watch replays to be cer- tain ourselves. Owens didn’t have that luxury.
He wasn’t deliberately transgressing. He was just acting on instinct, as any other player would have done.
Should what we saw with Owens really be penalised in the same way as a high tackle, a jumper being pulled down in a lineout, or the many other clear offences on the field of play that are a lot more dangerous?
If you were Sam Warburton, Ken Owens or Warren Gatland, how would you feel about the whole tour being decided on an incident as innocent or unfortunate as that one?
This is where I feel for officials, whether Joubert or Poite, because the law needs to be changed.
There are other examples of accidental offside where it’s a scrum, not a penalty, and the kind of incident we saw with Owens should be put into that bracket.
In the second Test, Aaron Smith went to pick up the ball at a ruck, it came off his foot and touched a team-mate in front. That’s accidental offside.
Or Team Red have the ball. Player X is carrying it and gets pulled or pushed in the tackle into team-mate Player Y, who just happens to be in front of him. It isn’t intentional, it isn’t blocking. That, too, is deemed accidental offside.
The Owens incident we saw was different, but what could he really have done in that split second? How could he really have known it had come off Williams’ hand, not the New Zealander’s, in the challenge in the air?
In conclusion, I have sympathy for Owens, but under law, Poite was correct to give the penalty... and wrong to change his mind.
However, the referee is the sole arbiter of a game of rugby and we have to accept and respect his decision. World Rugby can help avoid this sort of thing moving forward by changing the law.
Mind, didn’t I say that after the Joubert incident, too?