6N Round 1 - Wilkinson's try
There is going to be a lot of law talk after this hectic weekend with Six Nations and Super 14 starting.
We are starting with Jonny Wilkinson’s try. Then we shall talk about the new scrum procedures. We also have statistics from all the matches and other incidents to discuss from both competitions. It is going to be a busy week after a slack time in law discussions.
Just to remind ourselves. We try to discuss laws via incidents in matches to give the discussion substance. We are talking about application.
We do not want to point fingers or find fault because after all rugby is a human activity and so there are faults. If it were faultless you would not have a game at all. That we have sport depends on fallibility. Could this be one of the advantages of original sin? O felix culpa!
To this one there is a little sting in the tail.
Jonny Wilkinson’s try started with a sharp break by Harry Ellis on England’s right. He played to Wilkinson on his left who cut back towards the right, dodging Dan Parks and so moving closer to touch. He then moved out side of hooker Dougie Hall, which took Wilkinson closer to touch. Hall tried to push Wilkinson which took the diving flyhalf closer to touch and in fact over the touch-line, but in the air.
With his left hand Wilkinson grounded the ball just inside the corner post into which he crashed.
The referee referred the matter to the television match official. This was exactly the situation that the TMO was introduced for. The referee asked the TMO to “check everything”. That goes a long way beyond just the grounding of the ball. It includes touch and corner post.
The TMO looked at three replays, one from a different angle and then said: “Marius, I have a decision for you. You may award the try.”
The referee, who had seen the replay on the big screen, asked him to repeat what he had said.
Let’s look at a few things.
That Wilkinson’s body was above and beyond the plane of the touch-line did not matter as long as he was airborne.
Law 19: The ball is in touch when a player is carrying it and the ball-carrier (or the ball) touches the touch-line or the ground beyond the touch-line.
The sequence of events is important when it comes to the corner post.
Wilkinson did crash into the yielding corner post but it was irrelevant as by then he had already grounded the ball.
The next sequence of events is the crucial one. Wilkinson’s body lands in touch but when does it do so.
If you look really carefully it is clear that his right foot is the first body part to make contact with the ground. Now sequence of events plays its part.
Which happened first – the right foot touching the ground in touch or the left hand grounding the ball.
The slow motion reveals that the foot was grounded before the ball was grounded.
The correct decision, it seems, should have been a line-out to Scotland five metres from their line.
It was not an easy decision unless you had a checklist of things to look for and went through that checklist one by one.
That may have required more than just three replays to work through a checklist to make sure that the shoulder had not touched the post before the grounding, then that no part of the body had touched the ground before the grounding – right hand, right leg & foot, left leg & foot and then the grounding of the ball. Having a checklist produces a process of elimination till eventually the decision can be confidently made. And the decision that needs to be made is not necessarily confined only to the try.
It may make demands on patience but if we are to interrupt play for the TMO to make a decision there should be patience enough to get the decision right. Anyway it many find the whole TMO thing dramatic.
It is not the first error by a TMO, which suggests that the position is not a sinecure. He may go for matches and the major part of all matches without having the make a decision and then when one comes along which is hard it is a sharp wake-up call.
Because it is not a sinecure, it may take specialisation which leads on to experience.
Being an experienced referee does not necessarily mean that he will be an experienced TMO. Being a top referee, does not mean that he is a top TMO – or touch judge and so on.
England’s TMO at the Wales-Ireland match was not a currently top referee. England’s have been using specialist referees as TMOs and so have South Africa and may just be better than doing the TMO job once or twice a year..
It may just be the way to go.
A farcical decision? That’s what the Scottish coach labelled it. It was not an easy decision. The decision was probably the wrong one but it was not farcical – certainly not as farcical as letting Ellis run the way he did and Wilkinson evade two tacklers the way he did.
There is just one other questioning we could do and it may well be relevant – What were the TMO’s working conditions like? Did he have an adequate screen? Did he have access to sufficient camera angles?
A bad workman blames his tools, they say, but even a good workman with inadequate tools can produce disappointing work for a workman of his ability.
So what tools did the TMO have? The BBC have kindly told us:
Ultimately the responsibility for the provision of the Television Match Official lies with the IRB and we work with the IRB to ensure that their officials have all of the facilities they require to do their job properly.
The Television Match Official, for the England versus Scotland Six Nations fixture on Saturday 3 February, was sitting at the back of the match scanner positioned adjacent to Twickenham Stadium. He had his own personal monitor seeing exactly the same picture as the TV viewer and he had direct communication with the director, who was sat four feet in front of him.
The match scanner was a high definition production truck, furbished to exceptional standards of comfort and offering the highest quality pictures.
The Television Match Official has the opportunity to ask for as many replays as they require, from all angles available. They will only make a final decision once they are completely happy.
