Dixie
Referees in England
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- Oct 26, 2006
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Surprised no-one has yet commented on St Nigel's decision for a PT and YC in the Sarries v Clermont Auvergne HC semi final.
Someone with better skills than me will doubtless post a clip. Red charge-down a White kick in goal, ball goes high, remains in-goal and is dropping to a red player about 2m from the DBL. A White player arrives, and legally challenges Red attacker for the ball - neither collects cleanly. White then makes a second movement, batting the ball backwards away from the Red player, who by now is landing and off balance. The ball, directed backwards, bounces across the DBL and goes dead.
St Nige consults the TMO to ask whether the ball was deliberately knocked out of play. The replay on the big screen is not sufficiently granular, and St Nige offers the TMO the suggestion that there was no deliberate knock. TMO pauses, and offers the Saint a further replay. St Nige then deems that it was a deliberate knock, and that the appropriate sanction is a PT and YC. I was severely discomfited to find myself in agreement with Stuart Barnes's misgivings.
Firstly, while there knock backwards was clearly deliberate to get it away from the Red challenger, I found it impossible to say that the intent was to knock it dead. The White player had very few options as to where to put it, ad the fact that it bounced into touch rather than going forcefully there on the full gives me serious doubt as to whether it even entered the player's mind to put it dead. Sometimes, things just happen.
As to the PT, the offence occurred once the Red player had lost out in the challenge for the ball, and was unbalanced. It looked to me like St Nige "beamed White up" before the White challenger could make any challenge, leaving Red (in his mind) to catch and score uncontested. But the contest had been lost -if White was beamed up immediately before making the alleged illegal second contact with the ball, Red is unbalanced, unlikely to catch a bouncing ball close to the DBL and with other players arriving to contest the catch off the bounce. That doesn't sound to me like a probable score.
Someone with better skills than me will doubtless post a clip. Red charge-down a White kick in goal, ball goes high, remains in-goal and is dropping to a red player about 2m from the DBL. A White player arrives, and legally challenges Red attacker for the ball - neither collects cleanly. White then makes a second movement, batting the ball backwards away from the Red player, who by now is landing and off balance. The ball, directed backwards, bounces across the DBL and goes dead.
St Nige consults the TMO to ask whether the ball was deliberately knocked out of play. The replay on the big screen is not sufficiently granular, and St Nige offers the TMO the suggestion that there was no deliberate knock. TMO pauses, and offers the Saint a further replay. St Nige then deems that it was a deliberate knock, and that the appropriate sanction is a PT and YC. I was severely discomfited to find myself in agreement with Stuart Barnes's misgivings.
Firstly, while there knock backwards was clearly deliberate to get it away from the Red challenger, I found it impossible to say that the intent was to knock it dead. The White player had very few options as to where to put it, ad the fact that it bounced into touch rather than going forcefully there on the full gives me serious doubt as to whether it even entered the player's mind to put it dead. Sometimes, things just happen.
As to the PT, the offence occurred once the Red player had lost out in the challenge for the ball, and was unbalanced. It looked to me like St Nige "beamed White up" before the White challenger could make any challenge, leaving Red (in his mind) to catch and score uncontested. But the contest had been lost -if White was beamed up immediately before making the alleged illegal second contact with the ball, Red is unbalanced, unlikely to catch a bouncing ball close to the DBL and with other players arriving to contest the catch off the bounce. That doesn't sound to me like a probable score.
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