World Rugby has said it supports the team of match officials for last Saturday’s much-debated decision in the final play of the Lions’ 29-26 win, and CEO Alan Gilpin expressed his disappointment with some of the post-match comments made by Joe Schmidt.
However, Schmidt will not be sanctioned in any way, while Gilpin did not go so far as to say Italian referee Andrea Piardi and his officials were correct in permitting Jac Morgan’s clear-out on Carlo Tizzano and thereby confirming the legality of Hugo Keenan’s try.
Nor, seemingly, will the game’s governing body be publicly stating whether Piardi and his team made the right or wrong call.
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Schmidt commented: “We felt it was a decision that doesn’t really live up to the big player safety push that they are talking about”, while the Rugby Australia CEO Phil Waugh said he would be seeking “accountability” from World Rugby.
“Given the nature of the commentary surrounding last weekend, we just want to express our support for the team of match officials involved,” Gilpin told reporters at the launch of the ticketing programme for the 2027 World Cup on Tuesday, which was also attended by Waugh.
“There is no other position on the field that is under the scrutiny that our match officials are under, and yet they do an incredible job under that incredible pressure in a very live environment.”
He added: ‘I think it is disappointing when the reaction is one of: ‘this means player welfare isn’t taken seriously’, because we have worked really hard on that narrative. Everyone knows we are putting player welfare, in its broadest sense, at the top of the agenda. You can see that from what we are doing with the instrumented mouthguards, all the research, the science, the investigations.
“The way the laws of the game have evolved in the last few years is all about: ‘How do we have this great physical contest, but make it as safe as possible?’”. That part is challenging, in terms of the player welfare statement, but we have a fantastic sport, played in front of an amazing crowd; an amazing game. It’s going to create talking points. We know that. As long as that continues to be a respectful debate then we’ve all got to lean into it.”
Schmidt’s comments went nowhere near the level of the hour-long video compiled by Rassie Erasmus that criticised the officials after the Lions’ win in the first test four years, and resulted in a nine-month ban for the Springboks’ head coach.
Ironically, the current Wallabies head coach was at the time working for World Rugby as their director of rugby in high performance, but Gilpin made allowances for Schmidt’s post-match comments and acknowledged that he never questioned the integrity of the officials.
“There’s a lot of emotion, understandably. The Wallabies had a chance to win an amazing Test match, so we understand the emotion involved in that. Joe’s comments have continued to respect the fact that the match officials have got a tough job to do. He might disagree with the decisions that were made, but I don’t think he’s called the integrity of our match officials into question.”
Gilpin also confirmed that World Rugby, the Wallabies and the Lions will each contribute to the customary review of the game and will, apparently, have their questions answered. Yet it seems a major issue with rugby that the debate will linger on without a definitive answer as to whether the officials were correct or not.
“That’s top, top level international sport in a nutshell, isn’t it?” said Gilpin. “We see that in other sports where no one can agree with VAR in football and line calls in other sports. So yes, but it’s the complexity of our game and I think those match officials are making something like 800 decisions in a game and the pressure and the speed and the complexity of that and we all know that the breakdown is such a complex area to officiate.
“They’ve gone through their process. When the on-field decision is ‘try’ and that’s referred to the TMO, then there needs to be something really clear and obvious to change that and they didn’t feel there was.”
Yes, but it would be preferable if the game’s governing body confirmed their belief that Piardi and co were right to do so.
Waugh was not one of the VIPs to speak at the launch of the World Cup ticketing process but was in attendance, and Gilpin said: “Look, I had a good chat with Phil here, we’ve still got some, obviously some work to do with Rugby Australia, again, to clarify to them the position, but yeah, it’s about respectful dialogue.
“This is one of the great things about rugby, right? We can have these disagreements around the interpretation of the laws and around, again, magical games like Saturday, and then we all move on. Like the players.”
