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All Blacks five eighth Dan Carter lines up a kick at the goal during the Rugby Union Bledisloe Cup Australia v New Zealand rugby test match at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand, Saturday, August 2, 2008. AAP Image/Photosport, Andrew Cornaga
About ten minutes before the end of the enthralling Wales Vs New Zealand Test match at the Millennium Stadium, the Welsh half-back Martin Roberts was making a dash for the All Blacks try line when Dan Carter came from his blind side and hammered him in a tremendous tackle.
Carter’s right arm went across Roberts’ jaw, before slipping down around his chest.
The tackle was in the open and neither the assistant referees nor the referee Craig Joubert believed there was anything untoward in it.
Carter was not penalised.
Roberts was uninjured and interviewed after the match told journalists: “Things like that happen in games, and you just take it on the chin. It looked bad, but I was fine.”
The officials running the ground video at the Millennium Stadium immediately started showing slow-motion replays of the incident. What was the point of this? We know that slow-motion exaggerates things like impact, and this is what the slow-motion shots did.
Clearly, the officials wanted to arouse the worst instincts of the crowd, which had become sullen as another inevitable victory for the All Blacks appeared all too likely. And there was the obvious intent to shame the referee into being more punitive with penalties towards the All Blacks.
Both these things happened.
The crowd booed Carter as if he were some stage villain in a Victorian era melodrama. Joubert gave Wales a series of penalties, two of which were kicked, and Wales went into the last minutes of the Test in the unlikely situation of needing a converted try to draw, a result which would have been claimed as a moral and actual victory.
In my opinion, the behaviour of the officials who controlled the pictures going out on the big screen amounted to nothing more than cheating. They deliberately tried to influence the outcome of the Test in a way that they knew was unfair to Carter.
And unfair to the All Blacks.
If the argument is that foul play that goes undetected should be ruthlessly exposed several times on the big screen, then why wasn’t the incident when Brendon Leonard, the All Blacks halfback, was kicked in the head by the Welsh five-eights Stephen Jones in the 45th minute of play, similarly exposed several times on the big screen?
Unlike Roberts, Leonard was actually injured by the kick.
The incident was shown once and then not again. Jones lashed out at Leonard’s head with his boot and knocked him almost out. This was a far more serious incident than the Carter tackle.
If the referee or assistant referee had spotted it, Jones would surely have received a yellow card, or even a red card.
There is far less tolerance in the rugby game to kicks landing in the head of players than to tackles that start slightly high (because the tackled player is falling) and which end up around the chest.
The Australian match commissioner, Scott Newland, referred Carter to an IRB judicial hearing. Why wasn’t Jones similarly sent to the judiciary? The New Zealand commentator noted at the time that Colin Meads was sent from the field in a Test against Scotland for a similar incident.
The video foul play perpetrated at the Millennium Stadium is not a new thing in Britain.
In 2002, England snatched a 32 – 31 victory right on time against the Wallabies with a disputed try. The ARU complained later that video evidence of the England player (from memory Dan Luger) going into touch in goal was kept from the video referee.
An inquiry that was supposed to be held in the event was never, to my knowledge, published.
I don’t know whether there are rules governing what goes on the big screen during Test matches. If there are, then they surely don’t allow the officials to manipulate the pictures to help the home side.
If there aren’t any rules, then it’s time some sensible and fair rules are put in place to stop this cheating.
It is hard enough for teams like the Wallabies and the All Blacks to win matches in Europe with the media forever calling them “cheats” in a blatant, vicious attempt to put them off-side with the referees.
But to have local officials indulging in video foul play against them, as well, is just unacceptable.