World Rugby has not admitted any refereeing errors in the Rugby World Cup final. At least, not on this action. The very serious New Zealand media Stuff claimed that New Zealand’s Aaron Smith’s try had been unfairly refused in the final against South Africa. A bad decision that World Rugby admitted privately according to the newspaper. This information is false, according to World Rugby which denied this Tuesday in a press release.
“As confirmed ahead of the 2023 World Cup, World Rugby does not comment publicly on match officials’ decisions. We support our team of match officials, who carry out one of the most difficult tasks in professional sport at an exceptional level,” wrote the governing body of world rugby. In the 54th minute, Aaron Smith threw himself into the goal, believing to give the All Blacks the advantage against the Springboks. The English referee Wayne Barnes finally returned after video refereeing to a forward at the start of the action, after a throw-in.
However, this action, although not within the rules of the game, was carried out more than two periods of play before Aaron Smith’s try. The video referee should therefore not have gone back that far to call out the New Zealander’s fault. If the use of video refereeing was actually carried out outside the rules, World Rugby did not recognize it, and reiterated its support for its referees.
World Rugby would have privately admitted to the All Blacks that the cancellation of Aaron Smith’s try in the final had been done outside the rules. An admission that the world rugby body would not want to make in publichttps://t.co/GjNcFR2eK8
— RUGBYRAMA (@RugbyramaFR) November 14, 2023
“As we have seen in recent months, unfortunately, criticism of match officials can have wide-ranging consequences, including hate and threats online, and we must be aware of this human impact,” added the instance. World Rugby does not want to add fuel to the fire, three weeks after the final.
