July 4, 2026<\/a><\/p>\nSheehan thought he had given Ireland the lead just before the hour, but a lengthy TMO review eventually saw an infringement from James Ryan in the maul.<\/p>\n
Virgin Media broadcast the game live in Ireland, and played the full discussion between the referee and Sheehan as he explained his decision to disallow the try.<\/p>\n
It was a decision and exchange that Peter O’Mahony thought was complete nonsense.<\/p>\n
Ireland beat Australia in Sydney<\/p>\n
Referee Ben O’Keeffe and his team of officials ultimately decided that James Ryan had prevented Rob Valetini from tackling Dan Sheehan en route to the try line. That was a suggestion Peter O’Mahony saw as being wide of the mark.<\/p>\n
“I just think it’s way off,” O’Mahony said on Virgin Media’s live coverage of the game.<\/p>\n
“I mean, where does he want him to go? He’s in a maul, he’s allowed to be on the pitch, where does he go?”<\/p>\n
Andrew Trimble then interjected to say that he could understand the rationale behind the referee’s decision, prompting O’Mahony to snap back once again.<\/p>\n
He is never, in a month of Sundays, going to tackle him. It’s irrelevant.<\/p>\n
It’s because they’ve done so much damage to the Australian pack, Jack Conan’s got around the corner, so now probably 5 or 6 of the Aussies are either on the ground or irrelevant, and you’ve still got maybe 5 or 6 Ireland players standing up.<\/p>\n
It looks almost like a set new maul, but it’s not. They’ve just done so much damage and they’re around the corner.<\/p>\n
James Ryan’s still looking up to see, ‘Is there someone going to come in and hit me?’ He thinks, ‘I’m part of the maul,’ and he just stands up.<\/p>\n
O’Mahony was in full flow on a Roy Keane-esque no-nonsense diatribe, but it was hard to argue with the Ireland legend’s point, with the decision appearing extremely harsh on James Ryan.<\/p>\n
Both Trimble and Rob Kearney did ultimately agree with O’Mahony that the call was harsh, even if Trimble did say he could understand the referee’s reasoning.<\/p>\n
“The body language is all the optics,” Trimble said.<\/p>\n
“The optics…it looked a little bit like he engaged Valetini and that’s…I think it’s very tough, but I can see why it was given.<\/p>\n
Kearney pointed out that O’Keeffe had needed some convincing to land on disallowing the try.<\/p>\n
It’s funny, because Ben O’Keeffe needed to be persuaded from the TMO in the first instance.<\/p>\n
So there was a real disagreement, unsure from Ben O’Keeffe. Now, when he ultimately delivers the message to Dan Sheehan, he’s very clear about it. But he wasn’t so clear in the two minutes leading up to it.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, Ireland did get over the line and the disallowed try ultimately did not cost them dearly against Australia.<\/p>\n
Next up in the Nations Championship is a trip to Newcastle to face Japan in round two next Saturday morning.<\/p>\n