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Lucky.
Nigel Owens believes Luke Jacobson was fortunate to stay on the field after the All Blacks flanker’s controversial clearout on Josh van der Flier during New Zealand’s Nations Championship victory over Ireland.
The former international referee has weighed in on one of the tournament’s most talked-about incidents, admitting he understands why the officials reached their decision but insisting he would have taken stronger action.
Jacobson was shown a yellow card in the 27th minute after making head contact with Van der Flier during a clearout. Referee Nic Berry and TMO Ben Whitehouse referred the incident to the Foul Play Review Officer, who decided there was sufficient mitigation to keep the sanction at yellow rather than upgrade it to a 20-minute red card.
Discussing the incident on World Rugby’s Whistle Watch, Owens explained why the officials arrived at that conclusion.
“This is literally what the match officials will have discussed, and everybody has discussed this decision. And the main factor is they felt there was mitigation,” Owens said.
Owens also criticised the technique used in the clearout.
“So what they felt was that when the guy was coming in, now I don’t like this action; this action diving off your feet into a contact situation is dangerous, and this is what can happen.”
Despite understanding the reasoning behind the decision, the Welshman made it clear he disagreed with the outcome.
“For those reasons, they feel that this yellow card is then correct because of that mitigation.
“Personally, I think he’s very lucky because he’s always illegal. I am not seeing that dive with his arm tucked back here as anything that you would naturally do to clear out. Personally, I would have given a 20-minute red card for this.”
