TMO in Springboks-All Blacks Ellis Park Test demoted

The television match official (TMO) on duty during last month’s Rugby Championship clash between the Springboks and All Blacks at Ellis Park in Johannesburg has paid the price for his performance.

According to The Post, Ireland’s Brian MacNeice drew the ire of New Zealand fans, and the frustration of All Blacks coach Scott Robertson, in the 31-27 defeat for not ruling out a 17th-minute try by Springbok hooker Bongi Mbonambi.

While Irish referee Andrew Brace awarded the try in real time, replays then showed Mbonambi losing the ball as he fell over the tryline.

Missed the infringement

It is the job of the TMO to step in in such circumstances, but, instead, MacNeice missed the infringement.

While some argued Mbonambi’s drop was instead the result of Jordie Barrett stripping the ball, the motion of Barrett’s hands does not reflect that, and World Rugby seemingly agree, as MacNeice will not feature in any plum fixtures in the upcoming end-of-year internationals.

It will come as little consolation to Kiwi supporters, but a slice of vindication, nonetheless, after six weeks of silence from World Rugby, who never publicly address key refereeing incidents.

Speaking to The Post a day after that Test, World Rugby head of match officials Joel Jutge avoided commenting specifically on the try, although he did indicate that an error in isolation such as that would not be enough to see a match official dropped.

“Dropping someone, we need to have a lot of problems,” Jutge said.

“We cannot drop people like this.

“We must drop people, and we have no issue to drop people if we have several incidents in several games, or several poor performances. But match officials are like players, you cannot drop one player because he missed a pass or a tackle.”

Not the first time

For MacNeice, though, this wasn’t his first time in the spotlight in the past 12 months.

At last year’s Rugby World Cup in France he came under fire after over-turning a Samoa try for a dubious knock-on in their 18-17 loss to England, while in this year’s Six Nations he changed his mind at the last minute and deemed there was no clear evidence to over-rule an on-field decision of no-try for Scotland in the last play of their 20-16 loss to France.

Having already been locked-in for the Cape Town Test a week after the Ellis Park match, albeit in a different role as the foul play review officer (FPRO) who adjudicates on whether yellow cards get upgraded or not, it was therefore the November window where any repercussions would be seen.

And, despite being one of just four survivors from the seven TMOs at last year’s World Cup, MacNeice, who is also the chair of Cricket Ireland, is now the only one of the quartet who won’t be involved in any Tier 1 match-ups next month.

Instead, he has been appointed as TMO for the Georgia v All Blacks XV match in Montpellier on Sunday, 10 November, and the Scotland v Portugal clash six days later in Edinburgh.

ALL THE END-OF-YEAR MATCH OFFICIAL APPOINTMENTS

Do you recall the incident in question?

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