Let’s discuss the latter because it is quite interesting.
Dixon busts up through a few would be tacklers and is lunging for the line. As he attempts to ground the ball, Milner-Skudder appears from from his left and attempts to kick the ball as he is grounding it. He misses. Dixon grounds the ball mostly on Milner-Skudders leg, and the ground. Remember, all it has to touch is 1 blade of grass for the try to be given. If the ball has not left Dixons hand by the time it touches 1 blade of grass, it’s a try! Furthermore, he does not need to be in control of the ball. All he needs to look at is that there is no separation. The TMO is tasked with this very difficult decision.
In my professional opinion, I would say that the ball had to have touched at least 1 blade of grass before Dixon let go of the ball. Therefore I believe the decision by the TMO was accurate.
Furthermore, if you can categorically say that it never touched the ground, then I have an extremely compelling argument that a penalty try would then have been awarded! It clearly states in law that you may not kick the ball out of the hands of a player attempting to score a try. This is exactly what Milner-Skudder attempted to do, and as a direct result of that act, his trailing leg became the only point of conjecture as to whether a try was scored. Since we cannot separate pieces of a players anatomy from their bodies, we must regard this leg as part of the illegal act, and hence a penalty try would have been given.
The score came at a crucial time in the game, just before halftime, and as often happens in these low scoring affairs, those moments are critical!
The fact that the penalty try was not mentioned on any of the networks is once again a sad indictment of the quality of experts in this field that they do not possess. It would have been a magic talking point, and would have gone a long way towards allaying fears from the Canes faithful that they had been hard done by.
