TWO very average teams produced a pretty sub par Test match in front of an inter mittently mute Twickenham crowd with the volume only really being turned up in the final quarter when England roused themselves. Add to the mix a visibly nervous youngish ref who never got to grips with the scrum and baffled both sides with some decisions and frankly it wasn’t much of a day out.
The Championship – some statisticians reckon this is England’s 500th Championship game since the dawn of time – has however been full of such encounters over the centuries so perhaps we shouldn’t get too worked up and accusatory.
And at least we were spared the admittedly justified outrage if England had lost on account of another highly dubious conversion charge down decision. Now we can reduce it to an academic talking point but let’s deal with that first. It was still the main talking point.
The law, which has been amended a couple of times recently, says “that no defender can step over the try line and charge until the kicker moves in any direction to begin the approach to their kick”.
Well, quite so. George Ford is an orthodox round the corner kicker and clearly part of his legitimate preparation in the 90 seconds allocated is to line the ball and posts up, step back and then take a couple of steps to the side to complete his pre kick preparations. It’s what the vast majority of kickers in world rugby do. Only then does he “begin his approach” and only then, if he moves or twitches, are the chargers allowed to charge.
This is not rocket science, it’s all there in black and white. The Oxford dictionary definition of approach, used in this context, removes all doubt: To approach is “to move nearer to (someone or something) in distance and time”. So the decision gets a huge thumbs down from me and World Rugby needs to get a grip because yet again it’s too open to interpretation and indiviudal whim. And in passing where are the TMO checks of whether the chasers have crossed the try line before any movement as part of kicker’s approach? Everything else in rugby – touchdown, foot in touch – is measured in terms of millimetres but nothing on this. To this day we have yet to see the wide angled footage the TMO presumably checked to confirm Cheslin Kolbe timed his charge on Thomas Ramos legally in the World Cup quarter-final. If it exists get it out there so it can be used as the gold standard of what is permissible.
Now for the rugby on offer, although that won’t take long. Less than a week after the death of Barry John and with emotions high we had hoped for so much better, something worthy of the great man, but these are two teams in transition. Well that’s what England want us to believe. O
