OK I've cooled down now. I'll concede that while the illegality of Mumm's lifting cleanout was questionable, it was probably it's recklessness and general ill-discipline of the Tahs that led to his yellow card. So I'm OK with it.
With regards to the dodgy TMO decisions - firstly, I subscribe to the sliding doors theory. So even if the consensus is that both decisions were wrong I don't just simply deduct 14 points from the Highlanders score and say that should have been the result. My feeling is that the Clan were the better team and even if both of those decisions had been reversed they still would have found a way to win. I thought the Waratahs played OK but the better team won, and I don't have a problem with the result.
The issue is that that TMO probably supports a Supe team and that team is probably the Highlanders. He should not have been given that job. And because the evidence is that he made the wrong decision in both instances it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I've sort of cooled down too but in retrospect I still feel the Waratahs are right to be aggrieved. One of those two TMO decisions we could have withstood but the double blow was just a bridge too far. Each time the decisions pushed the momentum back to the Highlanders. In a game as evenly poised, that gain of momentum was decisive.
Mumm was always going to get a yellow card. I haven't checked the protocols to see whether the positioning of his knees below his hips neutralises the lifting above the horizontal, but referees are humans too and emotion overrules fact in that situation because there was some contact of the ground with his head. Such a pity that contact with the head during tackles wasn't emotionally an automatic yellow, there have been some horrendous let-offs this year, coupled with some pedantic over-reactions, including one in this game.
The sliding doors theory has to apply totally. That means after the first TMO decision, you cannot tell anything about what the outcome would be if the decision was different because everything changes after a sliding door moment. No Izzy try, no Mumm YC, everything changes. Technically the sliding doors moment was the first penalty against Latu where the ball was out and he was entitled to go for it. Everything after that would have been different. Fun to speculate, but ultimately pointless.
I thought the match was very evenly balanced. For most of the game the Tahs played good disciplined rugby and countered the Highlanders "kick everything and chase" strategy pretty well. We usually get suckered out when we play them. Had this game been round 3 I would have been very happy. Enough good play to develop going forward with the occasional loss of concentration to work on. But it was round 14. Gibson has got his team to a reasonable round 3 level of play two months too late with the competition virtually over and the Tahs will almost certainly miss the finals unless the Brumbies implode. That's pretty galling because I would argue the Tahs are now playing like the best Aussie team two months too late. We did last year too, before the international break.
No doubt lots of Tahs players will end up on the EOYT. Next year the head coach should play NONE of them till round 3 while they get their conditioning up to scratch and their ballwork. For some reason the Tahs wallaby players take longer than most to get back to Super level, so we need to make adjustments. That will be good reward for the dirt-trackers too and sharpen competition for spots.
