By Jim Kayes
New Zealand video referees Vinnie Munro and Mike Fraser have been stood down after both made controversial decisions in the final round of Super Rugby.
Fraser’s call saw the Chiefs lose to the Hurricanes on full-time, costing them a potential home final worth at least $600,000 in gate revenue.
He's yet to sign off on the report but SANZAR’s head of referees, Lyndon Bray, thinks Fraser was wrong when he said hooker Dane Coles scored the Hurricanes' match-winning try.
“Our gut feeling is that it should have been inconclusive, which would have resulted in a no try scenario,” Bray says.
That's a costly error as it meant the Chiefs lost top spot on the ladder and with it a potentially lucrative home final.
The key is what referee Jonathan Kaplans asked video referee Fraser.
“Mike, try or no try?”
So Fraser had to see the try being scored, which he couldn't.
That's different to Andy Ellis' try against the Force where referee Glenn Jackson was confident a try had been scored.
“Vinnie, are you there, we've seen the grounding so any reason I can't award the try please.”
Now Munro doesn't have to see the try being scored, just if it wasn't.
“I know I scored it because I lay down on it and sort of pushed forward,” Ellis says. “But the initial one, the tip of the ball touched a bit of white grass.”
But that wasn't the case when Israel Dagg was awarded a try despite clearly dropping the ball.
“Yeah the first one's clearly wrong and that was the Israel Dagg one,” Bray says.
“The second one is a different issue. It may seem controversial but the actual decision was correct based on what went up to the television match official, but the first one is wrong and Vinnie’s put his hand up around that one.”
While he accepts some wrong calls were made last weekend Bray says the video referees are correct about 95 percent of the time.
“It's no different to a player dropping the ball with a free line to score a try and sometimes we ask the question how did he drop that. We ask the question, ‘How does the TMO get that wrong, how did the referee get that wrong?’That's part of the human element of the sport and you are never going to eliminate that.”
The man in the hot seat this week is Garrett Williamson who felt a high tackle was okay.
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