Law: Referees Must Penalising Cane infringement against the Springboks
Saturday’s Rugby Championship clash between the Springboks and All Blacks featured a rare occurrence that we hope to see more of.
Referee Matthew Carley, who on the whole had a fantastic game, notably penalised All Blacks flanker Sam Cane for an infringement at a scrum.
Now it’s not often that flanker will get penalised anything more than leaving the scrum early or slapping the ball back with their hands.
However, Cane was penalised for something he did during the scrum and it’s an action that is often overlooked by match officials.
Sam Cane scrum penalty
The penalty in question occurred in the 3rd minute of the game when the two sides packed down for the second scrum of the match.
Much like the first set piece moments earlier, the Springboks got the upper hand with Ox Nche and Frans Malherbe putting Tamaiti Williams and Tyrel Lomax under the pump.
While going backwards is not a penalty in itself, Lomax does go around the corner and is no longer pushing straight. Referee Carley could have easily penalised the All Blacks tighthead prop at this stage but instead when he blows his whistle to signal the Springboks’ penalty, it is Cane that he singles out.
The reasoning for this is that Cane recognised the pressure his tighthead was under and whether he did so deliberately or sheerly down to the pressure his front row was under, he started to push on Bok loosehead Nche.
Carley is clear in his decision stating: “Seven up and into the front row, Sam you have got to stay in the back [row], you can’t join the front row.
He added: “You slipped up and joined the front row, I know it is difficult when you are going backwards.”
World Rugby laws around dangerous play and restricted practices in a scrum state the following:
“19.38: Other restricted practices at a scrum include:
a. Falling on or over the ball immediately after it has emerged from the scrum. Sanction: Penalty.
b. Scrum-half kicking the ball while it is in the scrum.
Sanction: Penalty.
c. Non-front-row player holding or pushing an opponent. Sanction: Penalty.”
In this case, Carley has penalised Cane under law 19.38(c), alternatively, he could have been sanctioned under law 19.11 (d) which requires that “All players’ binding is maintained for the duration of the scrum.”
https://t.co/ZRa1hpzeCs pic.twitter.com/5zHnijZiCx
— Jared Wright (@jaredwright17) September 9, 2024
Still, it is law 19.38(c) that is seldom officiated and is a safety law to protect the front row players. In fact, this kind of situation ended badly for Nche during the 2021 British and Irish Lions series.
In that case, it was also the opposing number seven who ended up scrummaging on the Bok loosehead prop.
Unlike Cane, Lions flanker Tom Curry did not slip his bind but instead got his head underneath Nche’s armpits and drove up on the prop binding on his shorts and lifting the front row.
Nche was penalised on that occasion, unlike the more recent one, the prop also sustained a neck injury and was unable to feature in the second Test match of the series.
In fact, he would play no further part in the series because of the injury and would only return to action the following month.
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Harsh call on Ox Nche.
Tom Curry binds on him and lifts him. #BoksvLions #RSAvBIL #LionsRugby pic.twitter.com/bGRJpLOw6r
— Jared Wright (@jaredwright17) July 24, 2021
Neck injuries are a serious matter and when Carley blasted his whistle at Cape Town Stadium he took it seriously penalising a player who also had a major scare with a neck injury.
We applaud Carley for penalising this action because as we mentioned above, it is not officiated very often and is incredibly dangerous for the front-rowers.
Hopefully, his clampdown will lead to other referees penalising more flankers for this action and will ultimately flow down to the lower levels where such tactics are often actively coached into players to assist struggling scrummagers.
This is very clearly a player welfare law aimed to protect those participating in the scrum and it had its desired effect as this was the one and only clear case of this occurring throughout the match.
Strong showing from Carley
As we raised last week in our law discussions, World Rugby and SANZAAR’s push to get speedier decisions from the officials on incidents and limit the number of official reviews has made the job of the referee even more challenging.
However, on Saturday we got a great example of how an officiating team can achieve this by working well in tandem.
In the 52nd minute, Carley missed a tricky offside call when Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s kick was charged down by Jordie Barrett. Fellow All Black Sevu Reece picked up the ball in front of Barrett but while the man in the middle missed it, his assistants picked it up and the Springboks were awarded a penalty. It was sharp decision-making and the kind of call that the assistants are there to pick up on.
Handre Pollard was taken out in the air after he leapt when grabbing the ball. Mark Tele’a was already committed to making the tackle before the Bok fly-half left the ground. Carley opted to allow the game to play on and while there was no official review, his TMO Ian Tempest would have checked the incident and judged that Pollard leaping into the air was the main contributor to the possible dangerous situation. It’s a 50/50 call but one that had little influence over the match and probably better that it was simply ‘play on’.
Carley did review the off-the-ball tackle from Jasper Wiese, he was sharp and accurate with his decision to rightly issue a yellow card to the Springboks’ back-rower and he did the same soon after when Reece took Willie Le Roux out in the air.
Lastly, he also reviewed Le Roux’s attempted intercept after initially believing it was just a knock-on and New Zealand scrum feed. However, he changed his opinion after the TMO reviewed the call in the background and prompted Tempest to have another look.
Le Roux knew it was a gamble when he went for the intercept so close to Damian McKenzie and while many felt that it was a rather harsh call, it was to the letter of the law and it was a real risk-reward situation for the Bok veteran and ultimately the risk did not pay off.
Finally, Carley was not willing to let the All Blacks and coach Nic Gill influence him and force a review of a tackle on Jordie Barrett in the latter stages of the game. He calmly explained that the TMO was checking the incident in the background and would notify him if there was anything clear and obvious – which again is in line with the current directives.
