Video: Bryce kills a killer play

There are two reasons I wanted to post this video. The first was to re-live a great passage of play from the weekend. The second was to see if I could figure out the bewildering call from the referee, Bryce Lawrence.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzG3KxNc6w4[/youtube]

For some the play might be a little loose, but the points I liked about it;

Quade showing what he offers at the back – nice vision and support from Genia and Ioane

Men re-aligning with depth behind the ball, enabling loose passes to not only be retrieved, but attack to instantly resume

Pat McCabe generating go-forward from poor ball, as he has in all his tests so far this year

Squeaky Moore’s pick and go, Horwill’s support from depth

Beale’s excellent draw of two men and pass, putting Ioane in space

Beale back on his feet immediately to offer support to Cooper, almost to the line

Cooper’s head’s up play, threatening at the ruck rather than immediately going wide

The backrow quickly at the breakdown, Pocock securing ball

But now for the end of the move, which comes from Referee Bryce Lawrence’s whistle. Bryce says “Gone to ground – scrum”, which he awards to the Wallabies. However, as there is no time left on the clock, it’s half time.

I assume that what Bryce meant was that the ball was unplayable, but I find that astonishing as he had given the ruck precisely two seconds of play. In addition, as he whistled stop, David Pocock – directly in his vision – had his hands on the ball, retrieving it from the ruck.

In any case, for the ball to called unplayable according to Law 15.8

If the ball becomes unplayable at a tackle and there is doubt about which player did not conform to Law, the referee orders a scrum immediately with the throw-in by the team that was moving forward prior to the stoppage or, if no team was moving forward, by the attacking team

Where is the doubt here? The only reason Beale cannot recycle the ball to Genia and Pocock is because his tacklers, Habana and Steyn, not only make no effort to roll away, they deliberately kill the recycling of the ball in desperation. Had it correctly been ruled a penalty, even if advantage wasn’t played, the Wallabies could have immediately played on, or settled for a certain 3 points (making it 6-3). There could also have been an argument for a yellow card for Steyn’s cynical play on the line.

My suspicion is that Bryce’s eagerness to call the play to an end comes from the fact he was knocked to the ground in the lead up to the final tackle and wanted to regain his bearings. However, in such a tight test match this is a very poor reason to deny an ascendant team a clear scoring opportunity as he was back on his feet and perfectly positioned in time to see the defence’s transgressions at the tackle.

The Wallabies are scheduled to be refereed by Lawrence in their RWC pool match against Ireland. Let’s hope Bryce lifts his game.