{"id":821126,"date":"2026-07-24T15:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/821126\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T15:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:39:08","slug":"nigel-owens-calls-for-action-after-totally-unacceptable-referee-abuse-in-argentina-v-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/821126\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigel Owens calls for action after ‘totally unacceptable’ referee ‘abuse’ in Argentina v England"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nigel Owens has slammed the actions of Tomas Albornoz, his teammates and the Argentine fans following Los Pumas\u2019 defeat to England<\/a> in the Nations Championship.<\/p>\n

Felipe Contepomi\u2019s charges fell to a narrow 31-24 defeat to Steve Borthwick\u2019s men after rallying back from a 19-3 half-time deficit.<\/p>\n

With time up on the clock, the Pumas had the opportunity to tie up the game when Bautista Delguy received the ball out wide, shrugged the attempted tackle by Noah Caluori, but was seemingly bundled into touch by Tom Curry.<\/p>\n

Referee Angus Gardner and his TMO discussed and debated the incident at length before reaching a decision of no try, which meant that England<\/a> emerged victorious.<\/p>\n

Los Pumas fly-half Albornoz remonstrated with Gardner in the immediate aftermath of the final whistle and bumped into the official and has subsequently been issued with misconduct charges by World Rugby. The Australian referee was further abused by fans who threw objects at him and his officiating team when they left the pitch.<\/p>\n

Nigel Owens slams abuse of Angus Gardner<\/p>\n

Owens has hit out at the behaviour of the Argentines<\/a> before he dissected the final decision in the match on World Rugby\u2019s<\/a> Whistle Watch show.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the first thing is that\u2019s a big moment. It\u2019s a huge moment, and it\u2019s a big decision to be made, and there\u2019s huge drama and excitement, and that\u2019s where we want you to stay,\u201d he replied after being asked for his thoughts on the decision by Wales legend Jamie Roberts.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you want all that excitement; it\u2019s part of the theatre of the sport. But what you don\u2019t want is it to spill over into disagreement and players running up to referees and then all the sort of abuse on social media that comes from it, which is totally, totally unacceptable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWalking off the pitch and then abuse from the crowd, something being chucked, not a part of the game and should never be part of the game, and that needs to be dealt with fairly but very strictly as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

While many believe that Argentina did in fact score the try, Owens disagrees as he felt the officials reached the correct decision. There have been suggestions that Caluori and Curry also high-tackled Delguy in order to stop him from scoring.<\/p>\n

World Rugby act on disgraceful Argentina v England scenes as Los Pumas star hit with \u2018misconduct charges\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Learning opportunity for the officials<\/p>\n

The former referee didn\u2019t address the possibility of a dangerous tackle, suggesting he either felt it didn\u2019t warrant discussion or simply avoided it entirely. However, he does believe this is a learning opportunity for officials as he feels the discussion between Gardner and his TMO fueled the doubt around the decision and the Australian should have trusted the fourth official more, who has better angles than him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat decision at the end is a really, it\u2019s a really tight one,\u201d he admits.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo I think they probably got it right? I think they have. It\u2019s one of those decisions. Whatever one you give, one team\u2019s going to be happy, one isn\u2019t, and if you give it the other way, it will be the same argument about it. So, it really is a tight one.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe learning from this is that the confusion from the situation was the debate between the TMO and the referee. And then that puts a doubt in everybody\u2019s mind. So, what you need to do here is the TMO goes, \u2018I\u2019ve got all the clear footage here, this is clearly on the line, no try\u2019.<\/p>\n

England greats slam \u2018disgraceful\u2019 and \u2018pathetic\u2019 Argentina as World Rugby urged to act after racist abuse was \u2018brushed under the rug\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThen the referee goes, \u2018Okay, if you\u2019ve got clear footage to show otherwise, fine\u2019. Or the referee feels, look, I really am thinking this is a try. This is my feeling here, and he sticks with his decision. So what you don\u2019t want is this flip-flopping. This is what made it now a debate was the back and forth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAngus Gardner was quite convinced that it was a try, wasn\u2019t he?\u201d Roberts argued<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there was an argument before,\u201d Owens added.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you\u2019ve got to remember, as the TMO has got all the answers, the slow motion, the zooming in, and so from my gut feeling watching that, I was going, I\u2019m with the TMO; I don\u2019t think it is a try.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Test power rankings: Springboks top the charts \u2018in every department\u2019 after \u2018sublime\u2019 Nations Championship while France \u2018set alarm bells ringing\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nigel Owens has slammed the actions of Tomas Albornoz, his teammates and the Argentine fans following Los Pumas\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":821127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[12910,64,63,1208,818,1182,229246,44,74931,760,85,12907],"class_list":["post-821126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-argentina","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-england","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-nations-championship","tag-news","tag-nigel-owens","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-world-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}