By Rich_daddy -
April 12th 2009 @ 5:07am
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Call in the Stewards for the Stormers Super 14 decision
After attending the Brumbies Vs Stormers match on Saturday, I left the ground scratching my head. It was not over any referee decision but rather the Stormer’s decision to attempt to kick a penalty instead of going for the try in the dying minutes of the match.
For those of you who didn’t see it, I will set the scene for you.
The Stormers are trailing the Brumbies by seven points with two minutes remaining. The Stormers are awarded a penalty inside the Brumbies half.
If they had kicked for touch they would have been well inside the 22 and have had a strong opportunity the square the match up at the death.
Yet, they decide to take a shot at goal, 40 metres out on an angle, and it has been wet and windy all night.
Perhaps they thought they could kick the penalty, then have another chance at scoring the try all within the space of two minutes.
However, it was a low scoring match and neither team held onto the ball for extended periods. The tries had come from opposition mistakes.
The Stormers had also been outplayed for most of the night.
So the decision to kick for goal in this situation makes absolutely no sense to me. Surely a draw is better than a loss, unless, of course, you want to lose?
This is not like a missed tackle, a knock on or a forward pass which could be choking under pressure. This is a deliberate decision the Stormers made and I believe ensured they couldn’t win but stayed within a try of the Brumbies.
To top it all off, the penalty attempt was missed, but to me that is irrelevant.
If I was a Super 14 official, I would be wanting a “please explain” letter from the Stormers.
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(5)
Nird99 said | April 12th 2009 @ 7:55am | Report comment
I too was at the game and was so shocked to see the decision to kick for goal.
I will add a little more to the scene. The brumbies were well and truly on the backfoot. the times they had the ball in the last few minutes they had either kicked it away or made silly mistakes (as both teams did most of the night). The stormers had been applying more and more pressure as the game ground along. The brumbies looked tired and exhausted.
And as rich_daddy said surely a draw is better than a loss, they would have shared the points instead of getting one for a bonus point. The Brumbie now move ahead on the table and effectively end the stormers chance of semi finals football.
Jerry said | April 12th 2009 @ 12:10pm | Report comment
I just saw it as giving themselves a chance to win rather than draw. Having said that, it was a difficult kick so going for the try might have been a better option.
Greg Russell said | April 12th 2009 @ 9:09pm | Report comment
There was a similar situation in the Waratahs-Bulls match, where K Beale – never a reliable kicker! – was instructed to take a difficult (by his standards) penalty attempt with about 5 minutes to go and NSW 6-20 behind.
What on earth was that about? Realistically NSW’s only chance of salvaging anything from this match was to score a converted try and get a bonus point for a close loss. Kicking the penalty would have brought NSW no closer to that possibility.
Not surprisingly, Beale missed.
Bonza said | April 13th 2009 @ 8:22am | Report comment
My guess is that the SA mentality is that it is best to leave the “tour” with points and rely on home game wins. By taking the shot it runs down the clock and buffers from a loss of the bonus point for being within 7 – the only problem is that they have already had two home losses so chasing a draw might have been better. The difference in effect was 1 point with less risk
Max Lamberto said | April 13th 2009 @ 9:11pm | Report comment
Maybe they’ve been watching too much Test cricket and didn’t know when to stop “batting on”.