The Battle of Culloden didn’t take much more than 40 minutes, with Bonnie Prince Charlie heading off to France after that heavy defeat to the forces of the King George ll.
Ireland needed only the same amount of time, having racked up four first half tries, to inflict their own irreversible punishment against the Scots. They will now retreat homeward, travelling in the opposite direction to the prince, no doubt feeling as lost and bewildered as he did.
These matches are a pleasure to referee, and Nic Berry came out of it very well. It would be petty to mull over a few calls, none of them made even the tiniest difference to the result. Ireland are quite an easy team to referee, which by no means is a negative, rather it’s a positive - they are determined to keep their penalty count down, to scrummage correctly and to keep away from the dreaded bunker.
Mind you, they were decidedly lucky to avoid a card when Dan Sheehan went hurtling over the advertising hoardings locked in combat with Scotland’s Pierre Schoeman. This had all kicked off when Ollie Smith put in a trip on Johnny Sexton, with the captain not exactly turning the other cheek. Smith correctly saw yellow for his trouble, but I’m not at all sure that it’s a good idea for everyone else to join in, even if the opponents have started the confrontation. Escalating that sort of incident can often end in tears.
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There is, however, one bone to pick with the referee, and that is his questionable positioning. Often he was in the way, getting too close to the action and it’s tricky enough to extricate yourself once you’re in a tangle. It’s not a difficult fix, but he needs to understand that it’s necessary and not wait until he gets mowed down by 120kg of pure bred prop-forward. Or, worse, prevents a try.
Ireland had been led out by the granite-like Peter O’Mahony, gaining his 100th cap, a great tribute to a great player. There is hopefully more to come. And what of Gary Ringrose, a sublime performance, going through the gears even more deftly, more swiftly, than Max Verstappen did in Qatar the other day.
[ England forced to dig deep in close-fought World Cup win over SamoaOpens in new window ]
Earlier, we had watched Samoa come terribly close to handing awful England their first setback of the tournament. The match may well have been decided in the TMO booth. To all intents and purposes it looked like Duncan Paia’s awarded try would push the Samoans out to a 19-8 lead, making it a very tricky comeback assignment for Borthwick’s boys. Andy Brace was heading for the halfway line restart when TMO Brian MacNeice called him up - there was talk of a knock-on, and MacNeice brought us through the sequence of play.
The TV coverage throughout the tournament has been poor, so it was difficult to judge from the replays we were shown, but the TMO told us that he had indeed found a knock-on. Every neutral in the land was in support of Samoa, with MacNeice’s intervention splitting opinion. However, having looked at the incident again, it’s very hard to say definitively that he got it wrong, and he can indeed argue that he was right. But it hardly met the criteria of “clear and obvious,” rather it was cloudy.
However, once the TMO gets involved it can all become over-forensic, and that’s maybe what happened here. The referee had watched as several players from both teams had competed in the air for the ball, and he did not delay the conversion, or appear to ask for anything to be checked. But MacNeice sniffed that something was amiss and took out his microscope. Maybe it’s a matter of damned if you do, damned if you don’t, so it’s very hard to blame him. But it does pose a serious question of the TMOs involvement.
England also had a try disallowed. Brace and his assistants surprisingly judged a double movement following a video replay. What I saw was the tackled Ollie Chessum reach out and place the ball on the goal-line, and that is certainly allowed. Again, same question, where was the clear and obvious offence?
I am not alone and there is a growing number who would prefer to see the TMO restricted to checking only for something in the actual act of scoring and for foul play, which is where it all began. Of course, that would mean occasional mistakes and decisions to debate. Which, when you ponder on it, is really no different than what’s happening now.
So please, pull back the TMO’s powers and put the decision-making back to the referee and his assistants - which is where it belongs. It would mean a big change in modus operandi, especially for those who may have become overdependent on the off-field official. They would need to work a lot harder, take fuller responsibility. And some, perhaps a lot, might not like it. But, harking back to the Bonnie Prince, any potential pretenders would be found out - not a bad thing at all.
