Jonny May slams TV repeats

The supersonic May was the toast of a rocking Kingsholm after blazing through Perpignan’s midfield from Ryan Mills’ delayed pass to score the winning try in the 75th minute.

But four minutes earlier he had been left frustrated after touching down only to see the try scrubbed on review for a forward pass by Mike Tindall in an earlier phase of play.

Television Match Officials (TMOs), who were previously only allowed to advise on the grounding of a ball for a try, can pick out an offence from up to two phases back under the terms of an IRB trial which runs until May. “I thought it was 100 per cent a try but I forgot they can drag it back and ruin it. It probably was forward but I still don’t like that rule. They should bin it,” said May.

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http://www.express.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/436542/Gloucester-27-Perpignan-22-Jonny-May-slams-TV-repeats

I must say I agree with him. Forward passes happen all the time and in 99% of cases they don't effect play. If the ref spots them so be it but going back to check for forward passes is nonsense and a bit overkill IMO. It slows the game down and makes it even harder to score.


Go back to check for foul play or a knock on or something but not for a forward pass. Thats far to pernickety for my liking.

The flip side is that refs are letting something go that they think may be wrong, knowing they can go back and check.

Roman Poite thought there was a forward pass for Ulster (which I thought was rather obvious as it looked shovelled forward) but he let the play carry on and the ball was grounded. At that point he went back to the TMO. Now Ulster fans will be unhappy that a try was scrubbed out - but Poite's instinct was it was forward. Without the chance to go back he would have blown straight away.

Personally I feel he should have had more faith in his convictions and blown what he saw. If he had been wrong though - well he would have been pilloried for that.

I have mixed feelings about this. The pass was only marginally forward, but it was forward. We've all been on the wrong end of decisions where a pass has been thrown forward a number of yards and yet the officials miss it - a TMO decision on these is justified. Had Glaws lost that match I don't feel I could have justly stated that we were robbed, as an offence took place, albeit a marginal call.

Personally, I feel matches are largely won by the mistakes of individuals and this can and does include officials. If we're going to review the act of scoring we should review the whole process leading to the score itself; alternatively we don't do it at all. There does need to be some fine tuning of the current process as some reviews take far too long. Despite my comment above, there does need to be a cut off point and that should be the final phase can only be reviewed. Furthermore there should be a time limit on the review process; if no decision can be made within say 90 seconds then the benefit of the doubt should go to the attacking side.

Of course forward passes should be pulled...it'll end up like feckin American Football otherwise...

Disagree with Jonny May.

If it's a forward pass a try should be ruled out.

Profitius wouldn't you be annoyed if your team got beaten because of a try that had a forward pass in the build up?

It's annoying to see a try disallowed but no less than for it being held up etc.

Personally anything that helps correct decisions to be made is good.

VietGwentRevisited wrote:The flip side is that refs are letting something go that they think may be wrong, knowing they can go back and check.

Roman Poite thought there was a forward pass for Ulster (which I thought was rather obvious as it looked shovelled forward)  but he let the play carry on and the ball was grounded. At that point he went back to the TMO. Now Ulster fans will be unhappy that a try was scrubbed out - but Poite's instinct was it was forward. Without the chance to go back he would have blown straight away.

Personally I feel he should have had more faith in his convictions and blown what he saw. If he had been wrong though - well he would have been pilloried for that.

The flipside to that Embra's last try, the ref looked like he was going to whistle for the 'collision' after the kick, but waited unitl the play ended (with a try) and went back to it. He checked the incident, and also checked the final pass, and when all were fine the try was awarded. It's a good idea in my books. It is easy to say it was a forward pass earlier in the play, it didn't matter. BUt how many of us have been in the crowd, and gone ape that a forward pass was missed and that the opposition scored of that or the next pass?

If the try looks beautiful on TV and the crowds in pubs and at home are cheering the art and invention of it...then it doesn't matter if a pass was a mile forward, the try should be allowed stand.

If it's just a boringly easy try against useless opposition, then a pin-pryck forward ball should be looked for with a fine tooth TMO investigation and the try stricken from the record books....

 It's all about what's good for the gyme, see!

am with HKC, the only issue I have is the time taken by the TMO to make their calls.
cant remember which T14 round it was but Montpelier had once 5 tries disallowed for various enfringements a couple of phases before the guy crossed the line. as a result the game lasted 20 minutes more than what it should!
hopefully the reviewing performance can only improve from there and good refs know how to use the TMO better than others by asking the right questions which is a psotove move in my opinion.

By the way how do you feel about checking if a ball goes out of play (e.g. touching the line) when kicked through?

Secretfly funny you talk about that - a try for Jamie Elliott of Saints vs Sale this season was disallowed because the ball touched the line but if it didn't would have been immense.

Can't find a link but it was so close to being a potential for try of the season.

beshocked wrote:By the way how do you feel about checking if a ball goes out of play (e.g. touching the line) when kicked through?

Secretfly funny you talk about that - a try for Jamie Elliott of Saints vs Sale this season was disallowed because the ball touched the line but if it didn't would have been immense.

Can't find a link but it was so close to being a potential for try of the season.

I hope everyone understands I was being tongue-in-cheek with my proposals but yeah.... when I was typing my comment I was thinking of the disallowed try scored by Ulster at the weekend against Leicester...it was a smooth rolling-offload beauty that would have been one of the tries of the HC season.... but nope, replay killed the dream for everyone who initally thought that it was home and dry.

beshocked wrote:Disagree with Jonny May.

If it's a forward pass a try should be ruled out.

Profitius wouldn't you be annoyed if your team got beaten because of a try that had a forward pass in the build up?

It's annoying to see a try disallowed but no less than for it being held up etc.

Personally anything that helps correct decisions to be made is good.

I wouldn't be annoyed by a forward pass because thats been pernickety. Many forward passes happen throughout the game but they don't really effect the game.


I reckon we should leave it up to refs to judge forward passes. If the ball doesn't go clearly forward that its obvious to the ref then just play away.


Also if you're going to check for forward passes then how far do you go back.

I totally agree with Jonny May..... Too many shows are repeated on Dave too often.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:

VietGwentRevisited wrote:The flip side is that refs are letting something go that they think may be wrong, knowing they can go back and check.

Roman Poite thought there was a forward pass for Ulster (which I thought was rather obvious as it looked shovelled forward)  but he let the play carry on and the ball was grounded. At that point he went back to the TMO. Now Ulster fans will be unhappy that a try was scrubbed out - but Poite's instinct was it was forward. Without the chance to go back he would have blown straight away.

Personally I feel he should have had more faith in his convictions and blown what he saw. If he had been wrong though - well he would have been pilloried for that.

The flipside to that Embra's last try, the ref looked like he was going to whistle for the 'collision' after the kick, but waited unitl the play ended (with a try) and went back to it.  He checked the incident, and also checked the final pass, and when all were fine the try was awarded.   It's a good idea in my books.   It is easy to say it was a forward pass earlier in the play, it didn't matter.  BUt how many of us have been in the crowd, and gone ape that a forward pass was missed and that the opposition scored of that or the next pass?

It was shown on munsterfans that the Edinburgh players foot was on the ground after the ball left Hanrahans foot. The ref said he was already in the air which was wrong. So the video replay probably cost Munster on that occasion.


Anyway Munster deserved to lose.

But its the rules...NO FORWARD PASSES. Though i agree Australia dont seem to understand that idea...

On the flip side,

the Blues played Leinster a couple of weeks ago and a Blues player was deemed to have knocked the ball on in the final pass to score, which actually came off a Leinster player.

The referee blew for the knock on and didn't check the TMO. He got it wrong, and the Blues had a chance to draw level with Leinster with something like 15-20 minutes to go. Granted it probably wouldn't have affected the outcome of the match besides a possible losing bonus point, but this drama could have been avoided if it had gone to the TMO.

whocares wrote:am with HKC, the only issue I have is the time taken by the TMO to make their calls.
cant remember which T14 round it was but Montpelier had once 5 tries disallowed for various enfringements a couple of phases before the guy crossed the line. as a result the game lasted 20 minutes more than what it should!
hopefully the reviewing performance can only improve from there and good refs know how to use the TMO better than others by asking the right questions which is a psotove move in my opinion.

I attended a match last season where the TMO was used so much the first half alone took 60 minutes. To make things worse with no big screen us fools sat in the rain had no idea what was going on.

My preference would be for Coach Call,3 a game if correct get it back if wrong lose it, go with refs on field, can go back 3 phases & or 1 minute, able to stop play but if incorrect penalty/try if in defending 22 to other team

broadlandboy wrote:My preference would be for Coach Call,3 a game if correct get it back if wrong lose it, go with refs on field, can go back 3 phases & or 1 minute, able to stop play but if incorrect penalty/try if in defending 22 to other team

I'd like that.  Maybe only 2 challenges in a game (but you get it back if you were correct).

IronMike wrote:On the flip side,

the Blues played Leinster a couple of weeks ago and a Blues player was deemed to have knocked the ball on in the final pass to score, which actually came off a Leinster player.

The referee blew for the knock on and didn't check the TMO. He got it wrong

Scrum V made a ridiculous song and dance about that as if it was obvious, but even on their slow-motion replays, it was inconclusive.

Went with 3 as probably only 2 will be used as need to keep 1 for glaring error in last play of game, so allow 1 wrong call which could be debatable anyway

It's a crap rule- because we're now in a situation where the game is stopped time and time again to hear from the TMO. The TMO has been massively overused this season.

For me, its consistency. Sure, check the last pass if you want- but there will be plenty of tries where there is a forward pass in the build-up and its missed altogether, and isn't checked. Then the question becomes why didn't he check that? Soon we're in a situation where we are checking every try just in case there is something wrong with it, as a safety net. I'm seeing this happen already.

As for the use of TMO for foul play, this is now getting invoked any time there is a little bit of handbags off the ball 'just in case'. Twice in two weeks I've seen Derek Bevan as a TMO asked to adjudicate on two incidents which had absolutely nothing in them and have resulted in a penalty and a yellow card respectively despite insignificant contact being made in both cases. Again, referees are massively overusing the TMO here.

We need to go back to the TMO just being allowed to check the grounding of the ball ASAP. The old system didn't need to be fixed! We used to complain about how much time scrum resets took out of the game, now we have TMOs breaking the flow of the game up far too much. It's a disaster.

Notch wrote:It's a crap rule- because we're now in a situation where the game is stopped time and time again to hear from the TMO. The TMO has been massively overused this season.

For me, its consistency. Sure, check the last pass if you want- but there will be plenty of tries where there is a forward pass in the build-up and its missed altogether, and isn't checked.

Or in Rob McCuskers case they check the pass, but ignore the fact he didn't ground the ball over the line

broadlandboy wrote:My preference would be for Coach Call,3 a game if correct get it back if wrong lose it, go with refs on field, can go back 3 phases & or 1 minute, able to stop play but if incorrect penalty/try if in defending 22 to other team

Agree with that. I'm more interested in it being used in cases of dangerous play though.

HongKongCherry wrote:I have mixed feelings about this.  The pass was only marginally forward, but it was forward.  We've all been on the wrong end of decisions where a pass has been thrown forward a number of yards and yet the officials miss it - a TMO decision on these is justified.  Had Glaws lost that match I don't feel I could have justly stated that we were robbed, as an offence took place, albeit a marginal call.

Personally, I feel matches are largely won by the mistakes of individuals and this can and does include officials.  If we're going to review the act of scoring we should review the whole process leading to the score itself; alternatively we don't do it at all.  There does need to be some fine tuning of the current process as some reviews take far too long.  Despite my comment above, there does need to be a cut off point and that should be the final phase can only be reviewed.  Furthermore there should be a time limit on the review process; if no decision can be made within say 90 seconds then the benefit of the doubt should go to the attacking side.

I don't mind time for TMO reviews (when they are called) as there was nothing worse before they were called only to see earlier in play there was a missed, clear ref/tj error.

As for the clock, I'd like to see kicks put on a strict timer and scrums where the clock stays on for the first scrum but the is stopped if the scrum collapses (say) and stays off until after n scrums are reset and is completed successfully and packs realise that it's only their own time and energy they're wasting.

My preference would be for play to continue unless and until the TMO, watching TV replays, sees something the referee has missed. That would apply even if it means a try is awarded at first and then subsequently (only by a matter of a minute or two) scrubbed out if there's been a forward pass / foot in touch / the ball wasn't grounded. Same with late / high tackles and anything else that the ref misses in open play. That way, you'd only get a stoppage when something's happened, whereas now you have stoppages just in case something's happened.