Nigel Owens weighs in on controversial All Blacks try and reveals ‘key difference’ after penalty for similar incident in Ireland game
Cam Roigard scoring a try for All Blacks v Scotland and former Test referee Nigel Owens.
Former Test referee Nigel Owens has explained why there were different outcomes for similar incidents during the international action last weekend.
They involved the games in Dublin and Edinburgh as Ireland took on Japan and Scotland hosted the All Blacks.
In the first match of the weekend, Japan tighthead Shuhei Takeuchi was penalised for picking the ball up at the base of the ruck.
Takeuchi was deemed to be part of the ruck and by putting his hands on the ball, that meant he fell foul of the referee’s whistle.
The All Blacks try
Later on Saturday, Josh Lord scampered away in a similar-looking incident before setting up Cam Roigard for New Zealand’s first try.
It was cleared by the television match official and Owens explained on World Rugby’s Whistle Watch why there was a slight difference between the two.
The Welshman started off by breaking down the Japan incident, saying: “A ruck is formed when you’re on your feet and you’re bound onto a defensive player who’s on his feet. What you can’t do in a ruck is pick it up with your hands.
“In this instance, the player is bound in the ruck, so what he does is he puts his hand down and picks the ball up – you can’t play the ball with your hands in the ruck.
“If he wants to do that, he’s got to detach and then pick the ball up which means the ruck is then over, but because he’s still in the ruck, he puts his hands down, the ball is in between his legs and he picks the ball up.
“That’s the key thing there; the ruck is formed.”
Owens then went on to discuss the Lord break and why play was correctly allowed to go on, showing the nuances of rugby’s laws.
“The key difference here; it’s not a ruck. You don’t have any Scottish players on their feet bound onto a New Zealand player, so you don’t have a ruck,” he said.
“What you have now is a tackle situation and then the law that we’ve just discussed does not apply because it’s not a ruck.
“Because there’s no ruck formed, it’s now a tackle which means the guy picking the ball up is not picking the ball up in a ruck. He is picking the ball up in a tackle situation, which is perfectly legal and allowed because he’s got one foot behind the ball.
“If he had two feet in front of the ball and the ball is behind him, that would be illegal because you’re in front of the ball, which means you are in an offside position.”
Law discussion: Why the All Blacks try stood but Japan were penalised for nearly identical actions
England v Italy ‘ruckgate’
Although there was a Scotland player around the vicinity of the tackle, he was not on his feet and therefore it did not create a ruck.
That was a law Italy famously exploited during their 2017 Six Nations clash against England.
Owens was duly asked by the show’s host – and Wales legend – Jamie Roberts whether Scotland could have come onto New Zealand’s side of the ball but, as the ex-referee explained, that loophole was closed.
“You could back then when Italy did that quite famously against England when Romain Poite told the English players, ‘I am a referee not your coach’… they changed the law after that,” he said.
“What they did then, even though a ruck is not formed, you still have a defensive line which the defenders must get behind, which prevents them coming around and doing a negative tactic.
“They changed that after that game. There is an offside line but not the same ruck law as playing the ball with your hands.”
