AUSTRALIA 35-34 SCOTLAND, 2015
Scotland were on the verge of a famous victory. They led Australia by a point with 30 seconds left of the 2015 World Cup quarter-final.
They were all but safely in the last four with just one lineout in their own territory to negotiate. They strangely threw to number four, the ball wasn’t taken cleanly and bobbed about through various sets of hands desperately trying to clutch it.
One of those hands to touch it was Wallaby halfback Nick Phipps, which meant that Scotland’s prop Jon Welsh was okay to catch the ball as he did.
But South African referee Craig Joubert ruled Welsh was o side, saying the ball had been played o one his teammates.
It was categorically the wrong call to give the Wallabies a penalty which Bernard Foley slotted to win the game.
The Scots were heartbroken and angry, leading to Joubert sprinting o the field to a ground echoing with boos and jeers.
A day later World Rugby clarified that the referee had made a terrible error. “It is important to clarify that, under the protocols, the referee could not refer to the television match o cial in this case and therefore had to rely on what he saw in real time,” the statement said.
“In this case, Law 11.3[c] should have been applied, putting Welsh onside. The appropriate decision, therefore, should have been a scrum to Australia for the original knock-on. Despite this experience, Craig has been and remains a world-class referee and an important member of our team.”