Ref plays cards right but where was penalty try?
The Super Rugby Aotearoa final wasn’t lacking for big moments, and referee Ben O’Keeffe was at the centre of several of them.
The man in the middle did a pretty good job in Saturday night’s decider in Christchurch, won 24-13 by the Crusaders, but there was one major moment which must leave Chiefs fans confused.
Why no penalty try when Will Jordan was ruled to have taken Jonah Lowe high in the act of scoring?
And the irony is amazing, as O’Keeffe was the very same man who in 2018 awarded the Crusaders a penalty try against the Chiefs in Christchurch when Ryan Crotty took a blow to the head from Lachlan Boshier when diving for the line.
Let’s run the rule over the major moments from the final:
33rd minute – Jonah Lowe no penalty try
Chiefs winger Lowe looked like finishing off an excellent attack by the visitors in the right-hand corner, only for a brilliant try-saving tackle from Crusaders fullback Jordan.
TMO Brendon Pickerill was called upon to check the grounding and touchline, and while Lowe hadn’t managed to get the ball to the line, the officials found high contact from Jordan to the head of Lowe.
O’Keeffe restarted play with a penalty for that infringement, but the Chiefs could feel hard done by that they weren’t instead awarded an automatic seven-pointer.
Under World Rugby’s law 8.3: A penalty try is awarded between the goal posts if foul play by the opposing team prevents a probable try from being scored, or scored in a more advantageous position.
There was nothing else stopping Lowe from scoring – no other defenders in his path as he dived for the chalk, so a try was indeed imminent.
There is nothing in the rules that explicitly states as such, but in the referees’ parlance you hear them talk about ‘the offending player having to be removed from the equation’ for them to decide if a try probably would have been scored, and, as such, if Jordan wasn’t there then Lowe would have indeed got to the line.
It was a strikingly similar situation to one from three years ago at the same venue, between the same teams, with the same ref – see the video below from 3:10 – where the Chiefs were on the other end of the call.
The rest of the penalty try rule states that the offending player must be shown a yellow or red card, too. And while it would have seemed an ultra harsh call for Jordan to be marched to the sin bin along with the penalty try, for what was just initial head contact before the tackle height lowered, rules are rules.
The Chiefs were down 12-10 at this stage and while they had their own issues – notably missed goalkicks from Damian McKenzie – and some Crusaders brilliance to blame for the result, it could have proved a big turning point.
41st minute – George Bridge bat back over dead-ball line
A less clear-cut one, this, but another which didn’t fall the Chiefs’ way.
After a kick through from Chiefs centre Anton Lienert-Brown, Crusaders winger Bridge scrambled in the in-goal to try and ground the ball, and ends up getting a hand to it to bat it over the dead-ball line.
It’s a common play seen in rugby league, but in rugby it’s a penalisebale offence.
Law 9.7 (b) states: A player must not intentionally knock, place, push or throw the ball with arm or hand from the playing area.
The key word is intentionally.
And Bridge’s hand certainly swats at the ball rather than trying to force it to ground.
Play was restarted with a goalline dropout, but had the officials deemed Bridge’s actions deliberate, the Chiefs – behind 15-10 at that stage – would have had a penalty five metres from the tryline.
53rd minute – Codie Taylor yellow card
The Crusaders hooker was sin binned for a dangerous tackle on Damian McKenzie and O’Keeffe got this spot on.
From an overthrown lineout, the Chiefs fullback collected the ball and had Taylor take him while he was in mid-air.
The key to these ones is usually where the player lands, which, of course, is a bit of a lottery for the person making the tackle.
World Rugby’s guidelines for challenging players in the air state:
If a player is not in a realistic position to gather the ball, there is contact and their opponent lands on their back or side – Yellow card
If a player is not in a realistic position to gather the ball, there is
reckless or deliberate foul play and the player lands in a dangerous position – Red card
Taylor’s actions may well have been in the ‘reckless or deliberate’ department, but fortunately for him, McKenzie landed on his arm, then side.
At a glance
Crusaders 24 (Sevu Reece, Will Jordan tries; Richie Mo’unga con, 3 pen, drop goal) Chiefs 13 (Damian McKenzie try; 2 pen, con). HT: 15-10.
Had he landed on his head, Taylor would have seen red.
58th minute – Sevu Reece yellow card
The Crusaders wing was also off to the sin bin, after Chiefs skipper Brad Weber successfully applied his captain’s challenge for Reece’s high tackle on replacement fullback Chase Tiatia. Eventually, O’Keeffe seemed to reach the right decision, though the advice from Pickerill upstairs was questionable.
Wanting a tip on where Reece’s first point of contact was – direct to the head or whether it started lower and slipped up – O’Keeffe was told by Pickerill it was direct, despite replays suggesting it indeed started more around the chest area.
This is key because for high tackles referees are instructed to follow World Rugby’s ‘Head Contact Process’, updated in March this year.
They are told to ask themselves if there was either a ‘high’ or ‘low’ degree of danger, with ‘high’ meeting the red-card threshold (before any mitigating factors can lower to a yellow card) and ‘low’ meeting a yellow card threshold (before any mitigation) or penalty kick.
‘Direct contact’ is one of the trigger words on a non-exhaustive list World Rugby provide for match officials to determine how much a player was at fault, and it falls under the ‘high’ degree of danger (red card) banner.
But despite Pickerill telling the on-field officials more than once that there was direct contact, O’Keeffe was prepared to stack up the rest of the evidence, and indeed under the new simplified ‘Head Contact Process’ it does allow refs more leeway on judgement calls.
O’Keeffe didn’t come up with specific mitigating factors (such as a sudden drop in body height by the ball carrier) to drop the sanction a level, however he did feel ‘‘the danger’s not extreme, because he’s flat-footed when he makes the tackle’’, so it seemed to meet more of the ‘low’ danger trigger words (such as ‘low force’) than ‘high’ ones.
And that meant the yellow card seemed the right call.