Former Springboks boss Nick Mallett has attacked a trend in the game that he feels has become a blight on rugby. He has also expressed relief that he no longer coaches as he feels he would get into heaps of trouble with the authorities.
The 69-year-old, who coached South Africa to a record 17 successive Test wins in the late 1990s, found himself exasperated watching the Junior Boks clinch a second successive Junior World Championship title on Saturday due to what he felt were overzealous interventions from the TMO.
South Africa defeated France 16-5 in the final in Tbilisi, but they had three second-half tries chalked off following review, denying Kevin Foote’s team a far more comprehensive victory. Several Nations Championships matches were also interrupted by lengthy TMO investigations, and this increasingly prevalent game-slowing development has left Mallett’s heart dropping.
Appearing on the latest edition of the Talking Boks show, he queried the extent of the try-cancelling interventions and outlined his frustrations that these reviews were only slowing down the game.
“Just really irritating…”
Asked for his thoughts on the TMO following a hectic Saturday where the fourth official became heavily involved in multiple high-profile matches, Mallett began: “For foul play, they are allowed to go back as far as they want.
“In fact, in the U20s, they went back a number of phases to the winger having his foot out as he passed inside and that try was disallowed. It was a beautiful line from (Samuel) Badenhorst, who scored a wonderful try and then it was brought back.
“It must have been at least three or four phases when the left winger on the touchline flicked the ball back inside, but his foot was touching the white line, so they disallowed that – so they were going back that length of time.
“And foul play, I’m sure they are allowed to go back for as long as they want. But just on that, why wouldn’t you look at the tackle from the French guy when (Yaqeen) Ahmed scored his try? I mean, those grasscutters, why did he not wrap his arms?
“It didn’t look to be a wrap; he just dived with his head and shoulder straight at Ahmed’s knees, and it was self-preservation as much as anything else to get over the tackler if he is that low. What is wrong with jumping over the tackler?
“Obviously, some part of the tackler hit Ahmed because he did a forward somersault when he hit the ground and then managed to get up and over the line. I mean, it was a perfectly good try to me. When TMOs are looking for reasons to disallow a try, that is really stupid.
“Your job is clear and obvious reasons. By all means go back if the ball is out, if there is a clear knock-on, if there is a clear bit of foul play, but when the ref has seen everything and awarded the try, to try and then go back is just really irritating.
“It’s a blight on rugby at the moment because my heart just drops. After a try when you see the guy going, ‘Okay, we are going to go and have a look back’, it just really drops. It just feels as though there is no rhythm in the game. We can’t get the game going.
“The great thing about rugby is it’s a game which keeps continuing, where play is continuous; you score, you get a kick-off. There is no 15-minute chat with the ref or the coach, you immediately get back in. It’s only half-time, and there are obviously water breaks in those situations, but for me these breaks are not really doing rugby a service at the moment.”
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Mallett’s comments about the TMOs came after a week when Italy boss Gonzalo Quesada was banned for two games – reduced to one on appeal – following his criticism of some decision-making in his team’s 47-17 Nations Championship defeat to the All Blacks.
The Italians fell away in the second half in Wellington after trailing by just 14-10 at the interval and Quesada was furious after full-time, claiming that referee Luc Ramos was “super poor” and that the margin of defeat was made bigger by the actions of the official.
The strong-armed punishment meted out to the Azzurri boss resulted in Mallett recalling one particular incident when he was in charge of Italy that left him enraged and breaking into the referee’s changing room to tempestuously say his piece.
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“Thank goodness I’m not coaching at the moment. I broke down a referee’s door once to get inside and shout at him after a performance Italy against Australia. I was so angry. We lost with a try that was a massive obstruction. The ref just decided not to see it and we lost by four points.
“Without that try we would have won for the first time against Australia and the ref wasn’t prepared to see me, so I just battered the door down, went inside and started waving my finger at his nose. I had to be taken out by security afterwards, so I would have been in a lot of trouble if I was coaching nowadays.”