Hey Craig, everyone makes mistakes

1. The iRB/WR hanging Joubert out to dry was disgraceful. There are NO excuses for their behaviour. 2. There are many experts who disagree with the premise fi\or the public bagging of Joubert, ie, he got that final penalty correct. As a retired referee I reckon there were two penalties the Scots conceded in that moment: the offside Scot handling the ball Joubert called and the offside Scot impeding Phipps. That's how I saw it in real time, the same as Joubert. To criticise him "after viewing the incident from all available angles", and probably in slow motion, goes against every principle we hold dear in rugby. Shame on you World Rugby.

Tim, a few points: Of course it is the assistant ref's job to look closely at what is happening, but they cannot see everything, especially when it happens quickly. It is not stretching credibility to say they didn't see it clearly - I would have been amazed if they did see it clearly. They didn't say they saw it clearly, their silence suggests they didn't - are you suggesting they were, in effect, lying by omission, deliberately keeping quiet on something they knew? That would be an extraordinary claim! There is no technical definition of karma - it doesn't exist. You miss my point about the timing issue. Scotland didn't score enough points in 80 minutes to win it. It doesn't matter when you score the points. They all count the same. If you lose because of a dodgy penalty in the last minutes, it's only because you were only a couple of points ahead. If you were clearly the better side you would have been more points ahead. If you are behind on the score board with 2 or 78 minutes to play, either way there is still less than a 50/50 chance you will be ahead at 80 min (all other things being equal) As you say, quite rightly, the Wallabies "... struggled to defeat a team that has performed in a mediocre fashion for years; they gave them 3 tries when the Scots scarcely know the way to the try line; and they gave away penalties like it was Xmas." And yet the Wallabies scored more points. Scotland had the chance to seal it, they blew it by choosing a poor lineout option, then a poor execution of that option, and the rest is history. How that adds up to Scotland being the moral or technical victors escapes me.

what is the magical cutoff time that wrong decisions must not be made then? 75th min? 70th min? 65th min? Let us say the 70th min for arguments sake. Since ref errors before that magical 70th min do not matter, anyone should be able to ref for the first 70 mins regardless of how poor they are. After all any errors can be made up. It does not matter if there are 10 or 15 or 20 against you then, since all the ones wrong against the Wallabies did not matter. Is there ANY number of wrong decisions before the 70th min that would matter? 40 , 50, 60? Also since these decisions do not matter there is no need for the TMO on tries or anything else (except for dangerous play) until the 70th min. So then at the 70th min you can wheel in the best referees and use the TMO for every decision to make sure they are 100% correct since it is only these ones that count. See that is the logical conclusion of the false argument you have made.

Tim, I've addressed the assistant referee point in my post above - in short, they probably didn't see it clearly. You provide no evidence otherwise. The "you can't come back from a 78th min mistake as easily s a 50th min mistake" argument is a logical fallacy. Winning games is not about coming back from behind, it is about being in front at the 80th min mark. To put it another way: A side with any brains will score as many points as they can, as fast as they can, until such time as they are so far ahead that they can relax a bit (and do you notice the ABs never relax in that regard?) Any side which thinks "ok, we're 2 points ahead, lets just play out the game and if they catch up to us we'll score some more points" cannot complain if they lose. In the 78th minute, Scotland were only 2 points ahead. They were always at risk of losing the game at that stage, because one more score from Australia could have lost it. Anyone with any brains knows that if you are only 2 points ahead at the 78th min mark then you can lose. So you aim to be more than 2 points ahead at the 78th min mark. Scotland had 80 min to score the extra points they needed, not 2 min. They didn't. They only have themselves to blame.

Tim why are you so sure the assistant refs had a good view of it? It all happened very quickly, and among a throng of moving bodies. No doubt if they had a conclusive view of it they would have said so - the fact that they did not say anything suggests they had nothing to say because they didn't see it any clearer than the referee. There was no "gross injustice" done to the Scots. It was a 50/50 call to Aust in the 78th min. Scotland got their fair share of 50/50 calls too. Plenty say their scrum penalties should have gone the other way. Scotland created few of their own points. Aust was the better side. No doubt there would have been "humble acceptance that they got the rub of the green, and empathy towards the aggrieved" if some Scottish so-called "statesmen" had been gracious in defeat and hadn't carried on as if it were another Lockerbie. And getting a smile in return for giving a smile is not karma.

Hi Tim - you make a god point on the Assistant Referees. We are making a statement that Joubert had a split second in which to determine what happened, pass it through his brain process of the interpretation of the laws and then make a decision. All of this in real time. Now the assistant referee standing at the lineout would have been in a similar line to Joubert as he stands straight in line with the lineout. He also sees it in real time and also further from the action, not by much, than Joubert. Could he have been certain that his decision was any better or was he even certain that he saw different from Joubert. a big call on his part. As for the other Assistant Referee on the other side of the field - he would not have been able to make a judgement call at all - again real time but also the distance he was from the play. Also I am not certain under the rules what the Assistant Referees are allowed to call and what they are not allowed to call. I read a beautiful article this morning on the Roar - as to "what Rugby is all about and what us oldies were taught when we played". Respect the referees decision and accept the decision and move on and never answer back to the referee. Now in my day - we all called the referee "Sir". And I myself after watching it several times am not 100% what actually happened and did Phipps 100% touch the ball, was it intent and under the rules as the call correct or incorrect. This has been done to death and I have submitted some "smart a...s" comments and stated the penalties throughout the game. What concerns me is who holds World Rugby to account fro their very poor action of not showing support for Joubert. a very poor showing of leadership. Anyhow - the semis are one and two days away - let us sit back and enjoy and watch games where decisions will be correct and incorrect and things will continue - the "Sun will continue to Rise" and we need to remember - "Keep Smiling" we are a long time dead!! On another note - I wonder if all the Referees and Assistant Referees responsible for both semi-finals are thinking of "Never to Blow their Whistle or Put their Flag Up" during the games just in case they are wrong and World Rugby throws them under a bus also. Cheers

In what way is law 11 contradictory.

"I have little problem with Craig Joubert getting it wrong and ‘dudding’ the Scots as he did". How do you feel about these mistakes where Australia was 'dudded" just prior to receiving the penalty? Either of these situations would have most likely resulted in a score for Australia thus negating the penalty. https://www.facebook.com/johnathon.tully/videos/10153516989001329/

A good article except for To read the mouthed words of Michael Cheika and others who ignore the gross injustice done to the Scots is only inviting the wheel to turn full circle and crush them. Cheika went in to bat for the poor treatment of Joubert. That lines up with how you feel Joubert should be treated. Scotland did not receive gross injustice, how can 1 wrong call at real time be a gross injustice? There were plenty of other wrong calls. Even if the right call was made Wallabies may have won. Scotland also had time for a restart. Which team do you support?

Its interesting you mention karma. Maybe this game was Karma for the missed knock on before Scotland's winning try in the Scotland vs. Samoa game? Does this mean its Australia's turn next?

Unfortunately this is not the first case of assistant referee's failing to intervene, whether by fear or simply missing the event, when their input could be the difference between a wrong and a right decision. It has become a trend over the past few years, and if it does not cease then in my opinion they should be scrapped. Camera angles can show us where the ball went out on a penalty, we do not need someone on what i assume is an elite salary to do that. World rugby has its hands full already handing down stupid bans and outing its own employees.

Cheika also had the gall to talk abt "principles" in the press conference. Grub!

Leonardo Da Vinci never married. Probably because same sex marriage was verboten.

"The fact that this occurred in the 78th minute should heighten their awareness of what’s going on, as a mistake that late in the game can probably not be repaired." Tim, suggesting that match officials need heightened awareness towards the end of a game is as much a discredit to their professionalism as World Rugby's unprecedented and disgracefully published "performance review" of Joubert. He's far from my favourite ref, and made a big mistake four years ago in the Cup final in not awarding France a penalty when McCaw had clearly infringed in the last few minutes. I don't know what you do for a job and don't need to but it would be like a HR boss sending an email to everyone in the company -- and on its Twitter account -- that Tim, or whoever, had missed out signing off on a $1 million contract over a technicality. Mate, I don't think Joubert actually made a mistake. He probably called correctly in that the Scottish forward was offside. Just honest enough to admit that he called it on the wrong section of the law. World Rugby erred terribly on making him the ultimate scapegoat in a controversial decision that would have blown away within a couple of days, and they made it so much worse, blaming one of their employees. Joubert admitted to applying Law 11.7 but the adjudicator reckons it should have been 11.3(c). But there's a couple of others interpretations under the various sections of Law 11 that seem contradictory or at least confusing, to say the least. So read Law 11 from start to finish, look at the incident from different angles, in slow-motion, and tell us what you reckon after deliberating with some mates over a few beers for an hour or two. A ref has to make a decision in a split-second, this one is still highly debatable, as is Maitland's yellow card for the deliberate or not knock-on. Somehow there needs to be a modernisation and transformation of rugby laws, for the good of the players, officials and spectators, without changing the game's essence. It is at some points a complex, indeed frustrating brand of football. Yet understood broadly enough that there are organised competitions in more than 100 countries. There have been arguments and indignation, fanfare and adulation about the hemisphere gap, stories of Argentina's meteoric rise in their two seasons in The Championship. And now into the semi-finals of the World Cup for the second time. Watching the Pumas' quarter-final with an Irish mate last week, I said at one stage "C'mon, they're not the All Blacks", but it's clear Argentina have modelled their new-found game on the world's most successful team. Anyway, after struggling to beat the Scots, the Cheika Wallabies have a hell of a game coming up.

Poor calls happen and despite, what I would term as pathetic, attempts to try and justify the call or even suggest the call was correct, the decision was incorrect and without doubt a mistake by Joubers. However it was the timing of the call that is the real unfortunate thing. 2 mins to go with Scotland winning and he awards a penalty to Australia incorrectly and Aus slot it and win, its a real kick in the nuts but we have to remember that there was more than one incorrect call in the match and it is part of rugby and was part of this game long before the 78th min. That being said, Ive never really liked Joubert, I feel he lets far too much go and games turn into a lottery in which it all depends on who, what and when he decides to penalise and when he doesnt. I hope Owens gets the gig with Barnes and Joube-Joube running the lines.