The debate was passionate and became tense when Jac Morgan’s clearout was discussed.
Michael Hooper, former Wallabies captain, was adamant Jac Morgan’s clearout was not legal. (Image: STAN SPORT)
Jamie Roberts was accused of twisting the words of Wallaby great Michael Hooper as an Australian TV panel discussed Jac Morgan’s clearout with the Wales legend.
The pair clashed on Stan Sport’s Between The Posts show, with Roberts the lone British and Irish Lions representative on the panel.
Also with Roberts and Hooper was Wallabies great Matt Burke, who argued Wales captain Morgan’s actions at the breakdown were not simultaneous as he “knew he’d lost the breakdown”, therefore discounting the argument the players arrived at the same time.
Burke added that he believed referee Andrea Piardi should have spent a little more time looking at the incident before making his decision.
“If they had their options to say, ‘Let’s go through it again and work it through’, maybe they could have got a different result,” said Burke. Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby.
“But I think it went a bit too quickly to get the end result. I thought it could have been a penalty in some way, shape or form.”
Coming to Roberts for the Lions’ perspective, the Welshman argued that an incident like Morgan’s is a regular occurrence across rugby matches, which are often not penalised.
He argued: “You take 100 rucks across a game of rugby. Ninety-nine times out of 100, that is not a penalty for me.
“Therein lies the grey area, doesn’t it? At the area of the ruck where we can call up every ruck and there will be something wrong with it, but in the context of the game, it doesn’t matter if it’s minute one or 79.
“I’m trying to make this as objective as possible. There’s so many rucks in a game where they look like that and aren’t touched.”
Wallaby great Hooper contested: “Make it subjective, flip the teams around. The Wallabies score at the death, Jac Morgan’s gone over for the ball and gets cleaned out by Carlo Tizzano, how would you look at it then?”
“I think Jac Morgan would survive the cleanout,” Roberts replied, triggering a laugh from the Australian panel.
“You were a strong lad over the ball, one of the best in the business (referring to Hooper), if you get over the ball like that and survive that cleanout, and that’s hard, it’s a proper clean, good contest, you win a penalty.”
“I think you’re twisting what I’m saying,” Hooper snapped back.
“Let’s say the result is the same. Jac Morgan doesn’t survive the cleanout – Carlo is also very good on the ball, he’s built to be over the ball, pretty much – Morgan gets bumped out and holds his head like Carlo does, how would you be looking at it then?”
“I’d like to say hypothetically, I’ll be able to say it’s a good clean,” Roberts said, with Hooper laughing again.
If you would like to watch the video, it’s available to view on the Nine.com.au website.
Former Wallabies and England boss Eddie Jones has also weighed in on the incident, and backed Piardi’s call, explaining that rugby may as well get rid of rucks if officials start pinging clearouts like Morgan’s.
“If he hadn’t allowed that try, then basically, the cleanout would be out of the game in rugby,” began Japan boss Jones.
“Because he couldn’t do anything more legal than he did. The argument is, he hit his head. Yes, we know that. But he couldn’t do anything more than that.
“If you don’t allow that sort of cleanout, we might as well forget about rucks and have ‘play-the-balls’.”
The Lions face Australia in the third and final Test on Saturday, August 2, at 11am UK time.