Nigel Owens: ‘Dangerous’ Dan Sheehan incident ‘should not have been missed’
Former Test referee Nigel Owens and Dan Sheehan's illegal clearout on Tom Lynagh during third Lions Test.
Former elite Test referee Nigel Owens has admitted that the officials made a serious error by not picking up on the clearout by Dan Sheehan on Tom Lynagh.
The British and Irish Lions hooker escaped any sort of sanction during their third Test defeat to the Wallabies, despite replays showing his shoulder connecting with the head of the fly-half.
Australia were forced to replace their number 10, with Lynagh suffering from concussion, an injury that has now ruled him out of their Rugby Championship games against the Springboks.
Thankfully, the error did not have an impact on the end result and Lions front-rower Sheehan was subsequently cited and banned following the match.
Owens suggested reasons why TMO for the clash Marius Jonker may have missed the incident, but ultimately came to the conclusion that officials simply have to be dealing with those types of illegalities.
‘Definitely foul play and illegal’
“Nobody should be in any doubt that this is foul play and it’s been dealt with due to the process that’s in place where, if the match officials, including the TMO, miss something on the day,” he said on World Rugby’s Whistle Watch.
“They may not have had enough to trigger them to check something, maybe the footage they saw wasn’t clear enough to say there is or there isn’t. For whatever reason it was missed.
“This type of action is definitely foul play and illegal. Dan Sheehan comes in with his arm down leading with the shoulder. No matter what happens here, the actions are dangerous and they are foul play.
“Unfortunately, I can’t answer why it was missed but it certainly was missed and it shouldn’t be missed. We should be getting these types of actions because we want them out of the game.”
With the TMO in place, officials can review incidents from the previous passage of play, perhaps even from a minute prior, but Owens explained why they only have a limited time to look for illegalities that may have occurred.
“Some people might be asking: ‘Why didn’t you go back to check it later if it’s a clear red card?’ Imagine Dan Sheehan scores a couple of minutes later and then you go back to check this [earlier incident] and realise, ‘hang on, Dan Sheehan should be having a red card here’, what happens then?” he said.
“If he should be off the field then he wouldn’t have scored this try, so what do you do? Do you take the points away? You’re just opening up a huge can of worms then.”
Issues with TMO protocol
Owens admits that he’s not a huge fan of the current TMO protocol and thinks that there is too much involvement from the video official.
The former Test referee insists that the focus needs to be on getting the big calls right, such as the Sheehan hit on Lynagh.
“My personal view, and not the referees’ view, although there are referees who would tend to agree with me, and not World Rugby’s view, is that the protocol is far too long as it is now,” he said.
“This is why we’re seeing a lot of TMO intervention and a little bit too much, but also remember we get a lot of things right as well, and that’s important to remember.
“If you extend the protocol even more, you’re just going to have a huge can of worms opened and then you’re going to stop for something that was five or six minutes back, and everyone’s going, ‘what’s going on here?’
“That’s why the protocol needs to be within that timeframe.”
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