The high tackle that cost England the game...where is it?

I've checked this video of those final moments. What was the penalty for? There is no high tackle in evidence when the ref, somewhat tentatively, sticks his arm out and awards the penalty.

What we can see is head contact at 79:36 on the game clock, but the penalty is clearly awarded for a high tackle that I can't spot almost 30 seconds later. Chessum maybe tackles the guy behind the carrier without the ball, but that's still not a high tackle as the guy is dipping into him at waist height and off the ball is not what the penalty is for.

This has the feel of a manufactured penalty about it. The head contact should have been checked and penalized anyway, but it seems the officials missed it and then came up with "something" to give France a chance as there is no mention of head contact. The incident when the penalty is awarded is also nowhere near the mark where the kick was taken from. Was this a call he got from the TMO about an earlier incident elsewhere on the pitch? It's a little confusing what exactly is going on here. Anybody know more?

"Was this a call he got from the TMO about an earlier incident elsewhere on the pitch?"

That was my instinct.

...but FFS, considering the magnitude of the decision, why not stop the game and show the incident?

Remember when Sacha scored against France and the TMO accused PSDT of clearing out beyond the ruck...they stopped the game for that and the ref ended up overruling that call from the TMO.

Why not do the same here?

I maintain, the technology is supered, the officials are clowns.

Yep, these things should be cleared properly. We usually see 3-5 replays from different angles when a penalty is awarded, yet here, the biggest call of the competition, not a single replay that I can recall. It reeks of fixing.

We are fully aligned on our cynicism when it comes to reffing and WR haha

...and I doubt the WR will let the Boks win the 2027 WC. My feeling is they are desperate for it to go to an NH side.

Man, the way the ref awards that penalty - it's like he had someone in his ear going "find a penalty, anything, for god's sake". No wonder Itoje was losing his shit.

@Pakie,

It's the head on head from Trevor Davison on Brennan that the ref misses but gets the call from the TMO or AR. A few phases later Itoje sticks an arm out for an intentional knock on and that is the spot they take the pen from.

That's how I saw it too, Xavi.

I really feel sorry for rugby refs. They're hated before they even do anything.

Not sure how many of the ref-bashers would do a better job than these poor guys.

Not a job I would like. I had to do a few kids games while coaching, and man, the abuse and language I got from the side lines and parents was terrible, AND THEN I had to deal with the away supporters as well.

Cool Xavi, thanks. That makes more sense. Pity the video didn't continue to that point and none of the highlight packages bother to even show or expand on this, the biggest moment of the competition, which I can't understand. That whole sequence up to the penalty finally being awarded belongs in any proper highlights package.

Not about the ref in this case, Rooi - suspicions about the powers above them. Where there's big money involved, I will always have suspicions.

I very much doubt I could do better overall job than the refs do.

For me, there are two issues. The first being highlighted above where the reffing team don't do the obvious and replay the massive calls. That final penalty was the biggest of the entire 6N and somehow they don't stop the game to show a reply. It's just silly.

The second, and by far the biggest issue, is how they appear incapable of understanding the difference between slow motion and actual speed. The amount of times a guy is falling into a shoulder but they claim the defender was high when actually he had no time to react. It's often calls where a guy has about 200ms. For the record if I tell you click your mouse button when you see a flash on the screen, you'd struggle to react within that time, let alone reposition your entire body. Becsuse of this incessant stupidity we are now in a place where drawing fouls is easier than ever.

As I said, the technology inspired but the humans using it don't seem to understand how best to use it...and when not to use it.

The game has more rules than any similar sport. Many more than soccer, more than American football. And all the ref coaching adds to the role of the ref as the key participant on the field.

And it keeps getting worse….identify an issue and a new rule is imagined.

The game needs to be simplified, but every element now has its adherents. Fetching didn’t exist in the 60s, now it causes palpable excitement.

And literally I don’t think even half of the infractions are called. When Erasmus went after Nic Berry I went back and looked at the game in slow motion, there were at least as many Bok infringements that weren’t called.

The disconcerting thing is it becomes random….but I can’t see any solutions unless we are willing to give up things like the maul, scrum dominance, fetching, and the bevy of player protection laws. The only hope is the big things are called.

To me the best ref is the lady, because she doesn’t seem to have any ego in the game or a need to be constantly intervening. She consults on the right things.

So if we can still identify refs who give us confidence, there is still room for training officials who leave fans with a sense that justice was done,

Then there are the crazy bans. Wiese's was a joke. And then Ruan Venter got a 4 week ban for a hit on Fassi that was clearly an accident.

I totally understand that refs can miss things in games. But when a supposed expert panel review something, with all the time in the world, then make decisions that are obviously incorrect, it doesn't inspire much confidence.

"Fetching didn’t exist in the 60s"

Not sure our Kiwi friends would agree with you on that one, Mozart.

Most of today’s fetching would surely have been blown up under the ‘hands in scrum rule’?

Then there are the crazy bans. Wiese's was a joke. And then Ruan Venter got a 4 week ban for a hit on Fassi that was clearly an accident.

Or O'Keeffe and the TMO in full agreement after multiple replays that Ben Earl used "both arms" in that chop tackle on Suaalii in the first Lions/Aus test even though both his arms were planted on the ground. There is no way that can be an honest mistake or an acceptable interpretation.

I'm in total agreement with Moz about the female refs.

For some reason, and I really don't know why, but they seem less prone to weird decisions. Perhaps it's natural instinct for multitasking or something but I can't recall, since the ladies started reffing, ever really having a complaint.

VD Westhuizen completely lost the plot in the Bulls game on the weekend. I'm yet to see any of the ladies go off the rails like that.

Don't say it, Pakie...don't!