I looked at the whole video and it’s a nothing burger. Most of these incidents are in the grey area, except for the tip tackle which I started a string on straight after the game and the Itoje not supporting his weight call.
Plum you are missing the incredible increased complexity of rugby rulings. In soccer the only thing the ref is really at risk for are foul calls in the box and offsides….easy peasy .
Rugby has countless Laws and Customs.
Let’s take two in that disgraceful video.
Firstly the Itoje call. He had his knees on the player….and so we presume he was not supporting his weight. But at the same time his body was very vertical….he had all the appearance of supporting his weight. The ref would have had to spot his knees to make the call. At the same time Mostert flew through the ruck on a clean out….a clear penalty .
Then the call on the Daley pull back…you see that level of interference all the time without it being called. ‘Foul play’? I bet it’s not covered in the rule so it has to be covered by custom. But have you in all the years you have watched rugby ever seen a penalty set aside for a non dangerous infraction after the penalty. I haven’t and I bet it’s not custom.
One could go through incident after incident….nothing was that clear cut.
So we could use the video ref more and perhaps the calls might be a bit better. But the game would be even more stop/start. Much more time would be taken up lawyering. Next we would have an appeal system.
Perhaps we are in the sweet spot where really bad mistakes don’t result in tries.
As for the video. It was obviously made from only the Bok perspective. But once released in the way it was the Rugby Board’s hands were tied.
We do want to be able to out bias to prevent it from happening again. I don’t think there was bias involved…perhaps a few errors. So what were the motivations in Erasmus’ mind. A compulsion to get back at Gatland for one upping him on the video ref… getting an edge for the next test….and providing an excuse for being beaten.
