Nigel Owens pins Hugo Keenan’s wrongly disallowed try on the ‘gut feeling’ and ‘natural reaction’ of officials
Nigel Owens explains why Hugo Keenan's try was wrongly disallowed.
Former referee Nigel Owens has explained why he believes that Hugo Keenan’s try was disallowed during the Six Nations match against Italy.
Keenan darted over the line in the 72nd minute after receiving the ball back from fellow outside-back James Lowe.
Lowe received the ball near the left touchline and avoided the tackle of Italian Ange Capuozzo, who had charged across an attempt to take him into touch but was bumped off by the Ireland winger.
Disallowed Hugo Keenan try
The winger charged forward and attempted to stay in the field of play and avoid the touchline with Tomasso Allan coming across for the tackle. Lowe then passed the ball back in the field with the assistant referee raising his flag as he believed that the winger had stepped on the touchline before passing to Keenan.
However, the replays showed that Lowe had managed to stay in the field of play and Owens has explained why the try did not stand.
“You’ve got to appreciate that from where the touch judge is looking from, it looks like he [Lowe] could be in touch but obviously, because there’s a player in front of him, he probably does not have a clear view,” Owens explained on World Rugby’s Whistle Watch.
“But his gut feeling is that he is in touch and the natural reaction would be then to put the flag up.
“Now you are asking, ‘Why was this not allowed to carry on and the try correctly given because it was scored?’ Because, when we look at the footage again, remember we are looking at the footage in slow motion, but on the replay, we can see that James Lowe’s foot was not in touch so therefore the try should have stood.
“But the decision was arrived at because the assistant referee put the flag up that could mean now that players would naturally stop because they think Lowe is in touch and therefore wouldn’t have made a try-saving tackle.”
Lesson
While Owens explained the events that led to the try being disallowed, wrongfully so, but said that there was a lesson to be learned for the players.
“Now, I know what some of you were saying, and I do have a bit of empathy with you here, we’ve always been taught if you don’t hear the whistle, you don’t stop playing,” he added.
“So maybe that is the lesson here for players, even though the flag goes up, if you don’t hear the whistle, carry on playing to make sure.
“But in this instance here the match officials felt because the flag went up it could have had an effect on what happened next and therefore disallowed the try, which should have stood.
“So there you are, so that’s the reason why it’s a very difficult situation. If we play on and play on and then go back everybody will say, ‘Why do we waste time?’ But in this instance, you put the flag up and sometimes, the wrong outcome is achieved.”
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