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Call in the Stewards for the Stormers Super 14 decision

Roar Guru
11th April, 2009
5

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.

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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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