Former Test referee Nigel Owens says the general consensus among World Rugby officials was that Kurt-Lee Arendse shouldn’t have received a yellow card at Ellis Park last week.
The Springbok wing was sent to the sin bin for a deliberate knock-on while attempting an intercept in the 27th minute of the Boks’ clash against England. The hosts were leading 17-0 at the time and conceded a try while down to 14 men.
“Forget the one hand because players can catch the ball with one hand,” Owens said when analysing the incident on World Rugby’s Whistle Watch.
“What you need to judge it on … is, was that player in a realistic position to regather the ball?
“If you’re going, ‘there’s no way you’re going to catch that ball, there’s no way that player is going to regather that ball’, then that should be a penalty.
“Not every deliberate knock-on is a yellow card,” he added. “It comes after what happens next – was there a line break? Was there an overlap? That comes into the yellow-card debate.”
MALLETT: Make Bok Test tickets affordable
Former Wales centre Jamie Roberts said he believed Arendse had a genuine chance of regathering the ball.
“The general consensus from World Rugby and the officials on this is that it should have remained just a knock-on,” Owens responded.
“The TMO should not have come in and got involved with this and given it a yellow card.
“They feel that he could have regathered that ball, it was unlucky he didn’t, hence it was a knock-on.”
ALSO: Former SA U18 prop dies aged 20
Owens admitted the incident highlighted a grey area in the laws and called for greater clarity to help match officials.
“It’s a bit of a grey area that I would like to see them tighten up a little bit more and [have a bit more] consistency on.”
The post Match officials got Bok yellow card wrong appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.