Poite gets one wrong – and so do many refs
ROMAIN Poite gets so much right – especially at scrum-time where nobody fools him – that it’s frustrating when he gets something horribly wrong. Especially as he explains his decisions with the dismissive flourish of the policeman he once was.
Early in the Pumas game against the Boks in Salta last week – with the Pumas in front – big Eben Etzebeth ran onto a bog standard pass on the fringes from Faf de Klerk except that the lock had misjudged it slightly, his body position was wrong and he could see Fecundo Isa was about to atomise him.
Etzebeth, all six feet eight of him, therefore decided at the very last second to jump while taking the pass and, simultaneously, the tackle. Quite clearly a case of jumping and hurdling into a tackle which is totally illegal and, because it can be dangerous, a yellow card.
But no, Poite bizarrely penalised Isa for tackling the man in the air – also a straight yellow – and even rubbed salt into the wound by saying that on this occasion he would ‘only’ award the penalty. Those who watch a lot of police and detective dramas will know instantly that such a concession means Poite almost certainly knew he was wrong but wouldn’t admit it.
Argentina looked nonplussed and up in the commentators’ booth former Springbok prop Robbie Kempson laughed aloud and had the decency to point out that it was a clear penalty to Argentina and a possible card for Etzebeth. Instead the Boks went for touch and scored their opening try which saw them recover from a rocky start to march to victory. Until that point they hadn’t been in the match.
More generally why does the game continually turn a blind eye to players jumping into tackles? Jonny May has been getting away with it for years, Colin Jackson would be proud of his hurdling technique.
And on a slightly different tangent when will the game wise up to players who completely misjudge a clever bouncing kick and then jump up at the very last moment to catch the ball in the air when they could easily field it with both feet on the ground? There are rerefereeing memos aplenty at present pre-World Cup, hopefully some of them will be addressing these issues.