Reds v Highlanders

[Lee Grant]

The Highlanders have the ball near half way.

Player A passes the ball to the right to Player B as Player C (on the outside of B but in front of him) runs forward and slightly to his left, to take out a defender who is moving over to where the play is going. Contact is made about 8 metres in front of B and to the inside of him.

After a few more passes, a kick and a wicked bounce the ball is grounded in-goal by a Highlander. Try ???

After some discussion with the TMO as to whether there was obstruction, the try was disallowed. The TMO referred to the possibility of the defender being able to defend had he not been knocked over.

But player C ran into the defender turning his body so his shoulder contacted him in a shoulder charge, which flattened him.

Question: - is not that shoulder charge on the defender, by itself, an incident of foul play that should be penalised regardless of what happened afterwards. Should the question of whether the defender could have defended effectively, or not, even arisen?
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[Jacko]

The Highlanders have the ball near half way.

Player A passes the ball to the right to Player B as Player C (on the outside of B but in front of him) runs forward and slightly to his left, to take out a defender who is moving over to where the play is going. Contact is made about 8 metres in front of B and to the inside of him.

After a few more passes, a kick and a wicked bounce the ball is grounded in-goal by a Highlander. Try ???

After some discussion with the TMO as to whether there was obstruction, the try was disallowed. The TMO referred to the possibility of the defender being able to defend had he not been knocked over.

But player C ran into the defender turning his body so his shoulder contacted him in a shoulder charge, which flattened him.

Question: - is not that shoulder charge on the defender, by itself, an incident of foul play that should be penalised regardless of what happened afterwards. Should the question of whether the defender could have defended effectively, or not, even arisen?
.

I thought the contact was deliberate, cynical, obvious and serious enough to make its materiality irrelevant. I think this was a TMO-initiated referral and well handled. Certainly correct outcome IMO (even if the mark was MILES out, which was poor given the assistance offered by on field advertising).

 

[Chogan]

I believe they were checking the materiality of the act as opposed to ruling on the intent of Fekitoa. However, it was just so blatant.

IMHO they arrived at the correct decision.

 

[Lee Grant]

I'm not doubting that the correct decision of no try was correct.

I just wondered why they bothered forming an opinion of whether or not a try may have been scored but for the action of the Highlander player.

In my opinion it was the elephant in the room that nobody was talking about. Listening to the conversation between the referee and the TMO, I think they missed the point that it was foul play that should have been penalised, and more, yellow-carded, whatever happened after the contact.

The Reds should have been annoyed had their defender been deemed too far away to assist in stopping a try, and a try awarded. The way the officials were discussing the matter, I think they missed the point.
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[Phil E]

In my opinion it was the elephant in the room that nobody was talking about. Listening to the conversation between the referee and the TMO, I think they missed the point that it was foul play than should have been penalised, and more, yellow-carded, whatever happened after the contact.

I expect they were wondering if the 'foul play' had any material effect or not.

If an attacker shoulder barges a defender 50m from the play it would have no material effect on the game and would just warrant a bollocking and being told not to do it again or else.

I can't tell from your description if this barge was material or not, maybe that's what they were trying to find out.

 

[Lee Grant]

But that was my point: the materiality was irrelevant in my opinion because they should not have been discussing the try at all once they saw the cynical foul play near half-way.