The highlighted bit doesn't mention attempting to play the ball which is what Ken did albeit instinctively, I would feel hard done by had the call be the other way around, maybe we can swap that for the non-penalty by Warburton at the start of the match.Sandydragon wrote:In today's Times. Regardless of the technical correctness, or otherwise, of Poite's decision, Mehrtens response is a bit lightweight - perhaps they should have found another ref for their opinion?
Did referee Romain Poite get the big calls right in third Test?
July 10 2017, 12:01am,
The Times
Yes
Rob Debney, former international referee
As the third Test came down to the wire, the chances were high that any series-deciding score was going to be created by human error. In the end, there was no score, and, to my mind, no crucial error from Romain Poite, the referee.
Poite’s decision to award only a scrum to New Zealand and not a penalty, when Ken Owens had touched the ball in an offside position, was absolutely correct. The offside was accidental. First, Owens had no option but to instinctively catch the ball. He had no time to get out of the way when the ball ricocheted down from Liam Williams. Law 11.6 states: “When an offside player cannot avoid being touched by the ball or by a team-mate carrying it, the player is accidentally offside.” Second, I don’t think he denied a New Zealand player the chance to claim possession. When the ball dropped, there was no All Black within a few metres.
What the referee did not get quite right was his communication. When he was speaking to the TMO, George Ayoub, it sounded as though they had agreed upon a decision to award a penalty, so it came as a surprise when he awarded the scrum.
In any case, I think there was a penalty to be awarded against Kieran Read for jumping into Williams while he was airborne. It was claimed that Poite bottled it but the easy decision would have been to penalise Read for the aerial challenge.
No
Andrew Mehrtens, former New Zealand fly half
New Zealanders will be bleating about Romain Poite — and that never goes down well. But they may have a point. I don’t think he is a good referee at all. I don’t think any of the French referees are.
Whether he favoured the All Blacks or the Lions is not clear; what is clear is that both teams had legitimate causes for concern with him. With French referees, most rucks and scrums are a lottery and there are inconsistencies in how they rule on things. This makes players nervous and, even subconsciously, they try to keep the ball alive a bit more, because every time there is a ruck they don’t know which way it is going to go.
We have a problem with refereeing. The number of top-class referees who have got there on merit are very few. The whole organisation is atrocious; they have too much autonomy.
When I was playing in France, Poite and Jérôme Garcès were on their way up. Both refereed me and were atrocious. I concluded then that French referees, as a rule, were very poor and I am happy to say that. They have a really dictatorial manner and they often get things wrong. There is not enough accountability.
The referees, to me, are an accessory to the game. They are not supposed to be the game itself.
However, as I have already stated if the ABs didn't fluff the ball continually in our 22 in the first half it wouldn't be a point of discussion.
