Last Friday evening, in the final match of the season at Thomond Park, Cardiff restarted the game after Keynan Knox's converted try had put Munster 31-27 ahead. There were four minutes and 25 seconds remaining.
Just over 14 minutes later, referee Andrew Brace blew the full-time whistle. Yes, 14 minutes.
In that time there were three captain’s challenges. Not for the first time, it made for an unsatisfactory endgame which would probably have seemed even more farcical had there been a full house in attendance.
One understands that this is a trial and as a means toward improving accuracy by the officials. Prior to the 75-minute mark, the captain’s challenge can only be used to check for an infringement in the lead-up to a try or to review foul play and, if unsuccessful, the challenge will be lost. This, in general, has meant it has not been used frivolously. For the first 75 minutes anyway.
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However, from the 75th minute onwards the trial states that the captain’s challenge “will be applied more broadly” and that a captain, provided they have not already lost their challenge, “can use it to check any whistled decision regardless of whether a try has been scored”.
In effect therefore, teams are discouraged from using it in the first 75 minutes but practically encouraged to do so thereafter.
Throughout the 14-minute endgame Andrew Brace couldn’t have communicated his rulings on the three challenges any clearer yet his authority, especially, and that of his fellow officials, was undermined. That side effect is liable to endure just as a result of this trial.
Matches are becoming too drawn out by TMO referrals as it is
Cardiff having been awarded a penalty after the 22nd of a 23-phase attack for CJ Stander not rolling away, they were set to have one more gilt-edged chance from inside the 22 and in front of the posts to record their first ever victory at Thomond Park. Whereupon Stander, the Munster captain, then approached Brace with a captain's challenge on the premise that the Cardiff scrumhalf Lloyd Williams had nudged the ball back into a ruck.
Brace agreed, which was technically correct, and reversed the penalty for Joey Carbery to kick the ball dead. Even Stander looked a little sheepish.
According to one witness, moments beforehand, the non-playing Billy Holland had run along the back of the in-goal area and spoken to Stander. It proved a final, decisive act by both players in their Thomond Park farewell. But is this really how we want rugby matches to finish?
There will be another unwelcome side effect if the Captain’s Challenge is introduced permanently when crowds return to the sport, not least on cold, winter’s nights, if five-minute endgames regularly run to around three times that in length.
Those in attendance will again be kept comparatively in the dark as challenges are referred to a TMO and the referee walks to the side of the pitch to look at a monitor, whereas those watching on television will be better informed. It could actually drive paying spectators away from matches.
Increasingly muted
Hence, in much the same way goal celebrations have become increasingly muted in football with the advent of VAR, an increasing inevitability about challenges in the seconds after the full-time whistle will discourage players and fans from celebrating apparent wins immediately. Their first inclination will be to see whether the losing captain is engaged with the referee.
Matches are becoming too drawn out by TMO referrals as it is and these trials are all the more revealing for running in tandem with existing competitions such as the Heineken Champions Cup.
Take the final at Twickenham last Saturday week. Had there been a captain's challenge we can be absolutely certain there would have been one post the final whistle by La Rochelle's Romain Sazy after Romain Ntamack had prematurely looked to kick the ball dead before being collared by three opposition players. Ronan O'Gara for one remained convinced that Ntamack had held onto the ball on the deck, while others suspected side entry at the final ruck.
If these scenarios could have panned out in a Heineken Champions Cup final, they could just as easily happen in a World Cup final
True, in some respects justice might have been seen to be served if video replays showed there should have been a penalty for La Rochelle.
Cue Toulouse celebrations being cut short for a penalty into the corner, another lineout rumble by La Rochelle over the line and the award of an equalising try (no doubt after more referrals to the TMO). On the less than far-fetched presumption that Ihaia West would have missed the conversion, the game would thus have been sent to extra-time, prompting Rob Kitson in the Guardian to speculate whether the final might then have run longer than the Eurovision Song Contest later that evening.
Throw in another of the laws being trialled in the Rainbow Cup, that of a red-carded player being replaced 20 minutes later, and imagine if La Rochelle had also won after being restored to 15 players for the last 32 minutes after Levani Botia’s red card for his high hit on Maxime Médard. And this at a time when World Rugby are seeking to make the game safer by outlawing high hits.
And if these scenarios could have panned out in a Heineken Champions Cup final, they could just as easily happen in a World Cup final. Were that to happen, the optics for the sport don’t bear thinking about.
For example, England scored an equalising try in the Autumn Nations Cup final against France at Twickenham last December after a couple of blatant knock-ons were missed by the officials, before going on to win the match in extra time and lift the trophy.
The sport doesn’t need that either, least of all on major occasions.
But maybe the TMOs powers could be “applied more broadly” from the 75-minute mark onwards, so that they could intervene for indiscretions such as knock-ons and the like. Empower the officials. Make them act more decisively in endgames.
The captain’s challenge has been worth the trial, but it’s quickly become apparent that it’s worth scrapping too.
