Cape Town – Seven minutes and six seconds ...
That’s how long it took referee Frank Murphy and TMO Marius Jonker to finally make a decision on Stormers flank Hacjivah Dayimani’s dangerous tackle on Bulls fullback Kurt-Lee Arendse at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.
With the push to attract the big crowds back to stadiums after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted recently, it was not a good look to have such a long delay.
It seemed as if time had stood still… Yes, the officials needed to be sure of what happened, but surely the high tackle by Dayimani was immediately apparent, as well the knock-on by Arendse?
Murphy and Jonker confused themselves further by wanting to look at whether Arendse’s foot was in touch, which was irrelevant as he had knocked the ball on anyway when hitting the ground.
“Firstly, apologies for how long that took. We had a problem with the comms and we had a problem with the footage,” Murphy told captains Marcell Coetzee and Marvin Orie.
“Original decision was not a yellow card for that, but now that I deem it cynical, that player’s going to the bin, and we are going to start with a penalty – no try. No try, because it was a knock-on.”
The Bulls scored through No 8 Elrigh Louw from the resultant lineout, and Dayimani’s yellow card meant that he wouldn’t be able to return to the pitch before the end of the game.
But Bulls coach Jake White suggested that Dayimani should have received a red card, and perhaps a penalty try should have been awarded as well.
“How do you get a yellow card for a head-high tackle on an open tryline? And then you worry about the knock-on. Of course he (Arendse) knocked it on. I mean, if you whack a guy around the neck, the chances are that you are going to knock the ball on,” White said.
“I don’t think (it would’ve made a difference to get a penalty try) as we scored from there anyway, and he got a yellow card. When you rewind a game, it’s easy to say there is a certain time maybe … I would’ve liked him to get a red card. But the reality is that it wasn’t going to change the outcome.”
But the former Springbok coach believed that the Bulls had their chances to pull off a victory, although the Stormers held on for a 19-17 triumph, and then he had a dig at the Cape side’s celebrations afterwards.
“The outcome was that it was always going to go to the wire, and we had a chance at the end. I can tell you now, if we could get into their half, Morné Steyn would’ve kicked that penalty. Let’s not forget that a couple of months ago, he kicked the penalty against the British and Irish Lions, so I thought there was a bit of déjà vu,” White said.
“That’s the margins. We couldn’t get out of our half, and they played tactically well. We probably kicked the ball back to them too often, but had we lost because they scored another try and we don’t get a (log) point, then I would’ve said to you ‘Geez, we should’ve maybe just try to get out of our half’.
“Well, it’s nice to win a trophy (with the Stormers on top of the URC South African Shield), especially if you haven’t won for years – so I suppose that’s why you’ve got to jump and down at the end of a game… because you have a chance to win a trophy!
“A lot of our guys have won some trophies over the last two years! I suppose that’s the bottom line. It’s called a shield, and if you think you can win it, then you’ve got to go for it. You’ve got to win as many trophies as you can. Ask these guys: they will tell you.”