Every top international coach knows that you can’t win Test matches without a decent shake from the referee. When the penalty count creeps up towards a 2:1 ratio against, the game becomes well-nigh unwinnable.

For most of the first Test in Brisbane, the Wallabies suffered in this respect. The penalty count was 8-2 in England’s favour at halftime, and 12-4 just after the hour mark.

Although the count evened out slightly in the last 18 minutes (as it often does curiously enough) to finish at 15-8, it was ultimately ill-discipline that shut Australia out of the meat of the match – the period between Israel Folau’s try in the 15th minute and Michael Hooper’s in the 58th.

To the neutral observer, the 50-50 calls went England’s way – and in a game as tight as this, that made all the difference in the world.

There were a number of calls that had a concrete influence on the game, at scrum, at the breakdown and with the Wallabies on attack.

Let’s start where we left off with last week’s article on the scrum.

It is time for Romain Poite to undertake a complete re-evaluation his handling of the set-piece. With his detective’s nose for fine technical weakness, the behaviours of the starting props change dramatically whenever he is officiating. It becomes a stress-filled game of musical chairs, with the last one standing when the music stops liable to be penalised repeatedly, then dispatched to the sin-bin for the coup de grâce.

The result is a dysfunctional shambles, with little chance of the scrum becoming a constructive part of the game in attack. Although there a total of only seven scrums set at Brisbane, five of those included resets due to collapses and improper engagements, six ended in penalties or free-kicks, and only one was completed. From that one scrum in the 70th minute, Australia scored a try rather easily. Oh, for what might have been!

The key 50-50 scrums were the fourth and fifth set-pieces, between the 51st and 54th minutes:

Up until this point in the match, the key battle between England’s tight-head Dan Cole and the Wallaby loose-head Scott Sio had been fought on roughly even terms, with both having been penalised once apiece and Cole receiving an additional short-arm penalty for pre-engagement.

The fourth scrum at 50:56 was crucial in solidifying Poite’s perception of the ‘weak link’ in the scrum. On an England feed, the right side of the England scrum begins the process of widening Cole’s hips out until he is walking around Scott Sio at 50:58. The feet of Chris Robshaw and George Kruis’ behind Cole are moving sideways and out to the right throughout the process. Neither Sio nor the flanker behind him, Michael Hooper, take a single step backwards as the scrum unfolds. The England right side simply rotates around both of them.

On the other side meanwhile, Greg Holmes gets well ahead of Mako Vunipola, driving straight through the gap between the England loose-head and Dylan Hartley and forcing him backwards as he tries to follow the movement across to the right.

At this point Poite makes clearly the wrong decision, rewarding England for a walk-around they instigated.

The second of the two examples illustrates the difference nicely. After another collapse on Australian feed, Poite issues a general warning to both Sio and Cole. In this case, the penalty to England is fully justified on the reset, as Sio and the flanker behind him (Scott Fardy) have to yield three steps and Cole clearly goes forward before he swings out to the right.

Poite read the scrum at 50:56 wrong. The only part of that scrum genuinely going forward was the Australian right side where Holmes had penetrated the gap between Vunipola and Hartley. Everything else was sound and fury, signifying nothing. With that penalty reversed, there was no way Sio could have been picked out for the yellow card at the following set-piece, and Australia would have kept a full complement of players on the field.

The breakdown
This area was hotly contested throughout the game, but in terms of turnovers made, Australia came out of the contest well:

Australia built twice as many rucks as England and conceded proportionally half as many turnovers as the men in white over the course of the game. They won almost 10 per cent of England’s ruck ball (well above average, with David Pocock affecting three steals). On the flip side of the coin, England won the total penalty awards at the breakdown by six to four, which suggests they were not bending the limits of the law as far as the Wallabies in order to force those turnovers.

And it’s here that we find another officiating crux.

Both instances occur deep in the opponent’s red zone with a potential score on the cards. In the first example, England’s number 7 James Haskell (with the red hat) tackles Dean Mumm before getting to his feet to contest the ball. At 63:20, the first cleaner (16 Tatafu Polota-Nau) engages Hartley and drives him out of the play.

With two players from opposite sides engaged above the tackle ball, the conditions for the formation of a ruck have been satisfied: “One or more players from each team, who are on their feet, in physical contact, close around the ball on the ground.” This means that the tackler is no longer able to get up and play the ball from an offside position, which is exactly what Haskell proceeds to do.

In the second example, Vunipola has driven deep into the Wallaby 22 before he is brought to ground by Fardy. The key defender, Pocock, qualifies as a tackle-assist but is clearly showing release with both arms at 29:03. He is the first man to the tackle ball and it is very hard to see why he is not allowed to contest it by Poite – Pocock has certainly won the battle against Chris Robshaw’s cleanout and has ‘hands-on’.

Poite explains afterwards that Pocock “came in a second time” but that claim is not supported by the footage.

These two tackle-ball situations occurred in critical situations for the defence. Both attacks were on the move and threatening to score a try. The 50-50 calls both went England’s way. In the Haskell example, it is obvious (with the benefit of replay) that a lawful ruck had been formed before Haskell ever got back to his feet. In the second example it is hard to see what Pocock can be doing wrong, having released the tackled player and as the first defender to arrive.

Poite’s interpretations cost Australia a scoring position in the first instance and three points in the second.

Bernard Foley’s try
The final example occurred during one of Australia’s many successful wide attacks during the game and resulted in a try for Bernard Foley. At the time, watching the match live I felt that Poite had made the right decision to call back the play for obstruction by Rory Arnold.

Then, events in the South Africa vs Ireland match caused me to reconsider my opinion.

Here is a selection of still images which illustrate the problem. First from the England game:

The issue is that Arnold blocks the one defender, Luther Burrell, who could potentially make a tackle on Foley when he makes his cut.

In rugby league, the game in which blocking runs by players ahead of the ball was first invented, the interpretation is now governed by whether the blocker engages the defender on the inside or outside half of his body. The ‘inside half block’ is allowed because the defender is still free to move across field towards the target, the ‘outside half’ block is penalised because the defender can no longer execute that movement. Here Arnold stops in order to make the ‘outside half’ block so the penalty is clear.

I was given pause for thought by a very similar situation which occurred in the South Africa-Ireland match later in the day, refereed by another Frenchman,
Mathieu Raynal:

In these images, the Springbok #12 Damian de Allende is authoring a block on his Irish opposite number, Luke Marshall, in order to lever open a gap for Lwazi Mvovo to run through. Once again it is an ‘outside half’ body block which places de Allende in between Marshall and the target runner. Marshall is forced away on to an impossible recovery tackle line and Mvovo scores without a hand being laid on him!

There is no essential difference between the actions of Arnold and De Allende, but once the TMO is introduced into the conversation, he and Raynal only seem to consider the high tackle by Ireland #13 Robbie Henshaw (for which Henshaw is yellow-carded) and the possibility of a forward pass between Elton Jantjies and Mvovo.

Despite the increasingly urgent appeals of Ireland captain Rory Best, the blocking issue appears to fall on deaf ears.

This point of comparison is what makes the Arnold block a 50-50 call. If the officials do not have other incidents to occupy their minds on the Mvovo try, would they pay more attention to the block? If Luke Marshall throws his arms in the air like Luther Burrell, or falls over in the contact with De Allende, would he have drawn the obstruction foul?

If Raynal is refereeing the Australia-England match instead of Poite, does he award the try to Bernard Foley? It is a game of fine margins indeed.

Reasons to be cheerful
If Wallaby supporters have reason to be cheerful – which I hope they will be after reading this article! – it is principally because of the ease with which Australia dismantled the England edge defence throughout the game.

This is not a deficiency that the England defence coach Paul Gustard will find easy to repair with the personnel currently available to him:

The Wallaby wide attack structure was fairly simple, typically with a couple of forwards ahead and the ball being played behind, or the two lines of attack linked by a pass out of the forward line and into the backs. The combination of Samu Kerevi, Dane Haylett-Petty and Israel Folau together proved quite adequate to the task of forming a second playmaker ‘in the aggregate’.

In the first half hour of the game it appeared that the problem for the England defence was individual in nature, with their #12 Burrell making a series of hesitant decisions on the edge of the field.

At 7:49 for example, he has to make the decision to spot-blitz on Folau as the ball comes out the back from Foley. Instead, he starts to drift out on to Haylett-Petty which leaves his inside help (#1 Vunipola) exposed to the situation he fears the most – a one-on-one ‘reach’ tackle with Folau running away from him.

At 15:06, Burrell again begins to drift when he should be going straight forward. Owen Farrell outside him has a bead on Folau as the ball comes out to the Australian left but Burrell’s action forces him to back out, and he is still retreating when Folau receives the scoring pass from Foley.

At 28:21 Burrell draws the blocking foul on Arnold as Foley cuts through the line, but given his uncertain performance up to that juncture you do have to wonder whether he would have made tackle in any case, had Arnold simply continued his forward progress through the line and ‘chipped’ Burrell on his way past.

Eddie Jones rightly hooked Burrell after this play, with Owen Farrell shifting to 12 and George Ford coming on at outside-half. The encouraging aspect for Australia, and the worry for England is that the edge defence did not improve measurably after the substitution.

At 57:20 the wide defence is already ragged on third phase. Ford (22) is pushing up while Farrell is holding his ground beyond him, allowing Haylett-Petty and Kerevi to exploit the lack of integrity in the line. Later in the same sequence, on sixth phase the end defender in the line is Billy Vunipola, effectively giving the Wallabies a two-on-one which Folau and Hooper are able to convert with something to spare.

At 72:48 the Wallabies’ big power advantage in the outside backs comes sharply into focus. One England’s more powerful backs, wing Marland Yarde, is able to line up Folau on his own terms on the spot-blitz, but Folau takes the contact and bumps Yarde off all the same.

Summary
In a series between two evenly matched sides, the officiating takes on more importance. A penalty goal can be enough to swing the fate of the match either way, and Australia clearly did not benefit from Poite’s interpretations in the first Test.

Had even two or three of the decisions highlighted in this article gone their way, they would probably have won the game.

The character of the game as a whole, and in particular the refereeing of the scrum, will be very different at Melbourne with Craig Joubert in charge. At the very least, we should be able to expect a much higher percentage of completed scrums with the ball available for use!

Given the fine margins, Michael Cheika is right to keep personnel changes to a minimum and confine himself to ‘tweaking’ – better discipline on both sides of the breakdown, a higher return from lineout especially if Rob Simmons is out. Australia were 100 per cent with Simmons on the field, but were three out of five with another throw recovered after a lost first touch after he went off.

Australia will base their hopes on the ability of their outside backs to overwhelm the England defence in the wide channels, so changes to the back-line are unlikely. However, I would expect Karmichael Hunt to provide more cover in the back three and Cheika to revert to a 5-3 split.

I would also anticipate a fit Sekope Kepu starting at tight-head – he is a much bigger unit than Greg Holmes – while James Slipper may be promoted on the other side if Cheika feels Scott Sio’s mind is not right for the second Test.

No.8 should be a straight fight between Ben McCalman and Sean McMahon, with David Pocock out of the series injured. Both can expect to share a significant degree of playing time at Melbourne.