Research was released today showing that slow-motion video footage of violent acts is more likely to result in a jury finding against the defendant.

The thought behind this finding is that when VT is slowed, perhaps to show a more detailed account of what happened, people across the board are more likely to believe that an act was deliberate and thus penalise the offender more harshly.

‘Penalise?’ ‘Violent footage?’ ‘Slow-motion video’? ‘Doesn’t this apply to rugby?’ all right-minded people are thinking.

And the answer is, of course, yes. Setting aside the trivial nature of deliberating on someone’s innocence in a court of law, the cauliflower-eared among us are thinking about the implications of this finding. We have all, in moments of deepest sin-binning, thought, ‘Ah, but the slow-mo makes it look much worse’.

Vindication!

I remember on at least one occasion, Nigel Owens, generally regarded as the top ref in the international game, asking not to be shown the slow-mo by the TMO when adjudging on foul play.

The foresight to do this probably reduced the punishment to the player and will undoubtedly have had a huge impact on the game.

While hazy on the technicalities of the game in this particular regard, I think there should be special dispensation for unintentional actions.

At very least referees and TMOs should try to separate what is deliberate, what is reckless and what is unforeseeable.

There is some debate about whether reckless and deliberate acts merit the same harsh punishment but it is certainly important to distinguish what is reckless and what only appears reckless give the milliseconds dawdling by.

If it doesn’t look at full-speed that someone has committed an act of foul play while by a split-second, it looks as though they did, it seems quite unlikely that they had any awareness that they would fail to comply with the law.

Can you be reckless when there isn’t the time?

Whether this should be reflected in a ban on slow-mos is unclear, personally I’d like to see the refs trusted with discretion. Don’t force officials into calls without all the info available.

Maybe a suggestion that before a final decision is made the official making the call should watch a full-speed shot last could work.

But whatever happens, let’s not ignore this new information.

Rugby has a proud history of adapting and adopting new technologies to make the game as fair as possible. Let’s not pull a football and reject all those things that could improve the game and prevent dubiety.

Let’s create Owen’s Law: Anything that can be fair, will be fair.