Official: It was a knock

Lyndon Bray, the Super Rugby tournament’s head of refereeing, acknowledged that the referee erred in the lead-up to a Bulls’ try in their match with the Brumbies which the Bulls won 36-34.

Bray told AAP news agency on Thursday that South African referee Marius Jonker should say “we got it completely wrong,” after he and assistant referees Lourens van der Merwe and Stefan Breytenbach failed to call an infraction that had a crucial effect on the match.

François Hougaard passed to Morné Steyn who did not catch the ball cleanly. The ball struck his right hand and bounced onto the ground. The referee, in conjunction with his assistant, waved play on, declaring that the ball had gone backwards from Steyn’s hand and CJ Stander subsequently ran on to score after everyone else – including his Bulls teammates – stopped and waited for the referee’s whistle.

 Bray said: “That particular error is just a stone-cold mistake. He (Jonker) has just got to put his hand up and say ‘we got it completely wrong.”

“That was between the assistant referee and the referee and that cost seven points,” Bray added. “And that probably colours the overall view of the performance because of that mistake.”