TMO (Too Much Outrage?)

Technology in sport was meant to make everything better. More of the right calls could now be made and teams could leave games feeling less and less hard done by from controversial refereeing decisions. After writing that I found myself rofl (rolling on floor laughing).


I am of course referring to the recent debacle surrounding the Television Match Officials in two Super Rugby games: Hurricanes - Chiefs and Crusaders - Force. I am a Hurricanes fan, but at no stage in the 3 minutes of TV replays did I see the ball grounded on or over the line, yet it was awarded a try. The on field referee has two options to ask his TMO. Firstly, he can ask  "give me a reason to not award the try." In other words, he thinks the try has been scored and the TMO needs to find evidence that proves a try has not been scored. However, Jonathan Kaplan asked his TMO "try or no try." I'd like to think that this means the referee has no idea if a try has been scored - which is why he went to the TMO in the first place -  and that the TMO, in order to rule a try, should have to find evidence that proves a try has been scored. There was no clear evidence that this was the case. We can only assume that momentum helped Dane Coles force the ball while under that pile of bodies, bearing in mind that Kerr-Barlow, the Chiefs' halfback, had his hand under the ball early on in the movement. Anyway, I like to think of this as justice for the yellow card given to Ben May for his tackle in SBW, which was not dangerous, and the missed head high tackle on Cory Jane by SBW, which was a few metres from the linesman.

The try awarded to Isreal Dagg to open the scoring for the Crusaders was even more ridiculous. Look at Dagg's expression afterwards. He was laughing. He knows that he didn't have control over the ball when he crossed the line, let alone forced it!

Spectators, instead of thinking that a fair decision has been made, become even more angry when they feel their team has been "robbed" because they belive that techhnology is meant to get rid of the "howlers." Spectators, some at least, myself included, can except that the referee in the middle, who had only one, real-time look at the incident, is inclined to make errors in judgement now and them. As long as they are not blatant, Mr Wayne Barnes! Spectators can't understand how a guy who has the luxury of reviewing the tapes in super slo-mo can possibly misjudge the situation. Wrong! I would like the TMO for the Hurricanes-Chiefs to come out on radio, tv, or newspaper, and say why he thought Coles scored. Then again, whatever he says will just create more controversy. What's the difference?