Referee admits Joe Moody should have been yellow carded following Tony Brown outburst
Super Rugby Aotearoa referee Ben O’Keeffe has admitted he should have yellow carded Crusaders prop Joe Moody during his side’s clash against the Highlanders on Friday.
The Crusaders defeated their South Island neighbours 26-13 in the first match of the new season at Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin.
The reigning champions littered their victory with a raft of penalties, though, conceding 15 infringements – almost double that of what the Highlanders conceded – as well as two yellow cards to Ethan Blackadder and Scott Barrett.
Highlanders head coach Tony Brown said post-match more should be done to penalise teams who commit multiple illegal acts as he described the state of rugby as “sad” and suggested Moody was “potentially” lucky not to have gone to the sin bin himself.
The 50-test All Blacks prop was caught in a scuffle with Highlanders lock Jack Regan early in the first half, landing multiple open-palmed strikes to the Irish debutant’s face at the side of the maul after Regan held onto Moody’s jersey.
In spite of Moody’s overzealous reaction, the Highlanders were only given a penalty for the indiscretion, while players from both teams were talked to by O’Keeffe.
Speaking on The Breakdown on Monday, O’Keeffe conceded that, after revisiting the incident during a referees’ review session, he should have issued Moody with a yellow card for his actions.
“My phone was going nuts straight afterwards,” O’Keeffe said. ““We had our review today and that was one of the big talking points, how to manage that at the time and what was the right outcome.
“We worked out that going through the process that Joe Moody should have been yellow carded for striking to the face.
“That’s really the standard we want to be able to set that if you’re going to be doing something deliberate like that off the ball, you should be yellow-carded for that.
“I was the referee at the time and, at the moment, I made a call based on what I felt was correct in that situation.
“I was going to give it a penalty, talk to both men and both captains, calm the game down and crack on and play some rugby, but that’s the benefit of reviews.
“You sit down and look at the process and the outcome of that is he should have had 10 minutes in the bin.
“As a group of referees, we all learned from that and that’s the standard, so if we see that later in the competition, they’ll be very lucky if they’re not going to be yellow-carded.”
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Although well-intentioned, O’Keeffe’s admission that may further aggravate Brown’s frustrations given the wrong decision was made during the match.
Chiefs halfback Brad Weber told the Aotearoa Rugby Pod last year that he felt similarly frustrated following a string of officiating mishaps that contributed to the Hamilton franchise’s winless record in last year’s Super Rugby Aotearoa.
Weber and his teammates expressed outrage that the TMO wasn’t used to determine if Pita Gus Sowakula had scored a potentially match-winning try in the dying stages of their 21-17 defeat to the Blues in Auckland in round seven.
The week beforehand, New Zealand Rugby’s referees boss Bryce Lawrence apologised to the Chiefs after it was ruled Damian McKenzie had wrongly been disallowed a try in their 33-31 loss to the Highlanders in Hamilton.
Weber described the officials’ inability to make the right call on the field as “laughable” and said post-match apologies or acknowledgements that the referees got their decisions wrong doesn’t change the outcome of the match.
“We’ll certainly give the Crusaders a heck of a crack this weekend, but it’s frustrating getting apologies from referees saying they got key moments wrong,” Weber told the Aotearoa Rugby Pod last July.
“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter for us, because we still get a loss in the loss column.
“So, as much as we appreciate them admitting that they might have got something wrong, that sort of doesn’t help our fortunes at the moment.
“You’d almost rather they didn’t say anything.
“I guess they know that they were wrong, and that confirms our thinking, that we’re not just complaining at nothing, it’s just frustrating that we’re not getting any of those calls run our way.”
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Meanwhile, O’Keeffe confirmed the right call was made to not award Jordie Barrett a conversion despite an uproar of confusion during the Blues’ 31-16 win over the Hurricanes in Wellington.
Barrett looked to have converted Asafo Aumua’s second try, which brought the hosts to within just five points of their opponents with little more than 15 minutes to play.
The kick was disallowed, though, despite it appearing to have curled through the uprights, leaving Barrett, the Sky commentary team, fans at the ground and social media users perplexed and outraged at the decision.
However, O’Keeffe said the camera angles were misleading as the ball had sailed directly over the top of the right-hand post, which means the correct decision was made to not award the conversion.
“If it goes directly over the post, which it did in this situation, then it’s no conversion,” O’Keeffe said. “We weren’t helped by the camera angles that came through after the game.”
Listen to the latest episode of the Aotearoa Rugby Pod below:
Comments on RugbyPass
Why cant I watch Rugby games please?
1 Go to commentsBeautiful shot from Finau, end of story. Gutted for Shaun Stevenson though.
4 Go to commentsThe Chiefs definitely didn’t win ugly. They had the superior scrum, a dominant lineout, and their defence was excellent once the Waratahs scored their two tries (thanks to some lucky refereeing calls mind you). They put pressure on the Waratahs lineout throughout the game, and the mind boggles as to why the referee did not award a yellow card or a penalty try against the Waratahs for repeated scrum infringements on their own try line before Narawa’s first try. And the Chiefs were slick with their passing and running angles on attack. It was a dominant performance all round, even with many questionable refereeing decisions.
1 Go to commentsWasnt late. Ref 2 assistants andTMO all saw it so who are you to say it was?
4 Go to commentsAre the Brumbies playing the Blues twice in a row?
4 Go to commentsBig difference from the Saders. Forwards really muscled up and laid a solid platform. Scooter brought some steel and I liked the loosie combination. Newell has been rather disappointing this season but stepped up big time - happy also to see Franks dot down. He should do that more often! Reihana had a good game and there seems to be more flair and invention with him in the saddle. McNicoll plays well from the back and is reliable plus inventive when he joins the line. Keep it up chaps!
3 Go to comments🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
30 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
4 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusaders , you can keep going.
3 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
30 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
30 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
30 Go to comments