Former referee Nigel Owens believes that the right decision was reached not to penalise Tadgh Furlong for his high shot on Tom Curry.<\/p>\n
The incident occurred early in the second half of the Six Nations<\/a> clash between England<\/a> and Ireland at the Allianz Stadium in round three of the Championship when the hosts were trailing 22-7.<\/p>\n Ireland<\/a> launched an attack but were stopped shortly before the England tryline, where Henry Pollock was deemed to have committed a cynical penalty and was duly yellow carded.<\/p>\n Maro Itoje perplexed by non-penalty call<\/p>\n However, TMO Matteo Liperini prompted referee Pierre Brousset \u2013 who had taken over from the injured Andrea Piardi \u2013 that a potential act of foul play had occurred at a breakdown earlier in the passage of play.<\/p>\n Prop Furlong<\/a> had entered a ruck and made a head-high hit on Curry<\/a>, who had also gone low into the breakdown, with the England flanker folding backwards as he went to ground.<\/p>\n Brousset reviewed the footage and ultimately deemed that it was \u2018a rugby incident\u2019 and didn\u2019t even warrant a penalty, a decision that left Maro Itoje perplexed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe players are going in at the same time, it\u2019s dynamic,\u201d the French referee said to the England captain.<\/p>\n \u201cDid he hit his head?\u201d Itoje interrupted.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is not targeting there,\u201d Brousset replied.<\/p>\n \u201cBut did he hit his head?\u201d the captain replied.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no foul play, it\u2019s a rugby collision,\u201d the referee said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo you agree, his head was hit,\u201d Itoje said as the referee pressed for the game to continue.<\/p>\n Had Furlong been penalised, England would not have gone down a man, and their woes were compounded with Dan Sheehan scoring shortly after Pollock was sin-binned.<\/p>\n That try pushed Ireland into a 29-7 lead, and while England did manage to hit back through Ollie Lawrence, quick scores from Jack Crowley and Jamie Osborne sealed the victory for the visitors.<\/p>\n Outrage as Tadhg Furlong escapes punishment for Tom Curry \u2018decapitation\u2019 attempt<\/a><\/p>\n World Rugby confirm \u2018universal agreement\u2019 over law changes following Shape of the Game summit<\/a><\/p>\n Nigel Owens\u2019 verdict on the incident<\/p>\n Owens has since weighed in on Furlong\u2019s actions on World Rugby\u2019s Whistle Watch show<\/a>, where he was adamant that Brousset had reached the correct decision.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, it was a rugby incident,\u201d the former match official said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe two players just came in, nobody was doing anything illegal. Curry is down very low.<\/p>\n \u201cTadhg Furlong comes in to do what you would naturally do. He doesn\u2019t have what we call a line of sight, where he can see where Curry is, but still carries on with this knowing that there\u2019s a risk that he\u2019s going to catch him in the head or something.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, it\u2019s a complete rugby collision. We can do everything we can to make the game as safe as we possibly can, but at the end of the day, it is a collision sport, and sometimes collisions do happen.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you look at this, you\u2019re going, \u2018Oh my god, that looks bad,\u2019 but it was just a rugby collision. So, there\u2019s no foul play taking place because there was nothing anybody could have done to avoid what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n