Was the Irish ref biased towards South Africa...?

Question

A lot of the fouls South Africa were given penalties for, when South Africa did things which looked like they could be fouls, England was never awarded a penaly. There were quite a few moments in the game that I was thinking "if an English player had have done that, it'd be a penalty". There's also that try, but that's another matter. I don't deny England did foul quite a lot, but I think South Africa fouled also but they were often overlooked.

Answer 1

If that had been true we would have been awarded a penalty when that English guy pushed Montgomery through the barrier!

Answer 2

Nothing more unattractive that a sore loser.  Very ugly.

Answer 3

So he is biased towards England because he is simply Irish?

Yep england should have had either a scottish, australian, french, welsh, american. new zealand, german or argentinian referree.

Answer 4

It was a conspiracy against England!

Irish ref awarding too many penalties against England (some were justified) and an Aussie TMO (who did England beat in the Quarter Finals?) who bottled it.

Answer 5

You must be referring to the time when Percy was shoved over the boarding and into the TV camera. He wasn't even holding the ball!

That was a yellow-card offense, but nothing was done about it.

Oh and here is a pic of the "try". You can clearly see that Cueto's foot is touching the side-line before the ball is anywhere near the ground:

http://img127.imageshack.us/my.php?image...

Answer 6

I always knew that claptrap about English people's sense of fair play was just claptrap. They just can't take it when they lose!

Cueto's "try". First of all, it wasn't the ref's decision - he asked for the judgment of the camera people and it was their judgment so you can forget about being victims there. Unless you want to accept that everybody just hates the Brits . .  .

If you look with unbiased eyes at the footage, you see from the front that Cueto downed the ball twice - once a couple of inches before the line, and then just after it. Then if you look at it from behind you see that his foot was off the sideline when the ball went down the first time - but his leg was on the sideline when he downed the second time.

The Rules of rugby aren't very difficult. Cueto was in touch when he put the ball down behind the line and no amount of bluster by super-chauvinist TV commentators will change that. He was so so close and it would have been a terrific try - if only he had been a few inches further when he downed the ball first. It's absolutley clear in the footage.

Anyway, the rest of us can rejoice in the fact that we won't have to hear about it ad nauseam for the next four years. And Percy Montgomery won't have to watch his back.

Answer 7

Obviously not otherwise we would have won by more because we would have gotten another penalty when Percy was pushed into the camera and boards. Your just blaming the referee cuz ur team didnt come out on  top.

Answer 8

No.   The ref was fair.   Not so sure about the Aussie TMO though, are you?   That was a try.   Disallowing it was a bit of revenge, I believe.