‘I would have given a red card’ – Nigel Owens believes All Blacks star was ‘very lucky’ not to be sent off against Ireland

Former international referee Nigel Owens says that All Blacks flanker Luke Jacobson is lucky that he wasn’t red-carded in the Nations Championship clash against Ireland.

The Chiefs star was sent to the sin bin in the 27th minute of New Zealand’s 40-21 victory over the Irish in round three of the competition after his dangerous clear-out on opposing number seven Josh van der Flier.

Referee Nic Berry deemed that the challenge met the yellow card threshold, having reviewed the incident with TMO Ben Whitehouse before issuing the sanction and referring it to the Foul Play Review Officer, Andrew Jackson.

Jackson deemed that there was enough mitigation to not upgrade the sanction to a red card, as he believed that James Ryan’s involvement hindered Jacobson’s ability to make a legal clearout.

Nigel Owen’s verdict on Luke Jacobson’s yellow card

Owens reviewed the incident on World Rugby’s Whistle Watch show along with Wales legend Jamie Roberts.

The former centre kickstarted the debate, saying: “It looks like he comes off his feet. Does he tuck? Does he not? Hits the Ireland player in the head. Now, is this a yellow card or red? We’ve seen reds given for this, right?”

“This is literally what the match officials will have discussed, and everybody has discussed this decision. And the main factor is they felt there was mitigation,” Owens replied, explaining how the officials reached the decision.

“So what they felt was that when the guy was coming in, now I don’t like this action; this action diving off your feet into a contact situation is dangerous, and this is what can happen.

“So I don’t like that, and so that’s not allowed; that shouldn’t be happening in the first place. So what they felt was he was going to make a legal clear-out, and if you look, there’s an Irish player on the wrong side now who’s actually getting out of the way, and then that contributes to what the next action of the New Zealand player is.”

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While the former referee understands why the officiating team reached the decision that they did, he does not agree that it was the right one. Jacobson also escaped sanction after the match as the citing commissioner also did not feel that the All Black’s actions met the red card threshold and opted not to cite him.

“For those reasons, they feel that this yellow card is then correct because of that mitigation,” he continued.

“Personally, I think he’s very lucky because he’s always illegal. I am not seeing that dive with his arm tucked back here as anything that you would naturally do to clear out. Personally, I would have given a 20-minute red card for this.”

“So you want to see the arm wrapping,” Roberts questioned.

“I don’t want to see that diving off action,” Owens said.

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“If there are players on the wrong side, the referee will deal with that, but just remember when you tackle somebody, sometimes you are going to be the wrong side. It’s what you do next; then you take into account if it’s a penalty or not.

“So the Irish player [Ryan] does what he has to do, which is to try and get out of the way. The mitigation is that they felt that this would have been a legal clear-out if that Irish player wasn’t getting up, contributing to what the action does.”

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Ireland are a ‘pack of whingers’

Jacobson’s yellow card proved incredibly controversial, with former Ireland captain Peter O’Mahony slamming the overall performance of referee Berry on Virgin Media’s coverage of the game.

Ex-All Blacks scrum-half Justin Marshall hit back, blasting Ireland as a ‘pack of whingers’, adding that Andy Farrell’s men did not make the most of their opportunities.

“They’re moaning about Jacobson, but at the stage Jacobson was in the bin, they tried to run out of their own half. They were clunky like they were all night because the All Blacks put their pod system under pressure and stuffed up their block play. Will Jordan picks it up, and they give the All Blacks seven points,” he said on the GBRANZ podcast.

“You can’t blame anyone else for that apart from yourselves; you’ve just given that away, off the back of scoring a try yourself and the All Blacks down a man.

“You throw it along the ground and Will Jordan basically will never, ever score an easier try in his life. It’s your fault so stop trying to look for excuses everywhere else, just look yourself in the mirror Ireland.”

READ MORE: All Blacks great blasts Ireland as a ‘pack of whingers’ who should stop ‘blaming everyone else’