On Saturday night, the Japanese Sunwolves and the Bloemfontein Cheetahs travelled to Southeast Asia for the first Super Rugby game to be played at the Singapore National Stadium. The match was also to be the first Super Rugby fixture to be officiated by new referee Quinton Immelman.
Under a closed roof in sweltering conditions, the 8000 strong crowd was ready for a contest between the speed and creativity of the Japanese team and the power, guile and expected set-piece dominance of the team from Bloemfontein. Perhaps it was also to be expected that the new referee would make a few mistakes evenly favouring both teams over the 80 minutes.
The first half was played at a cracking pace by the Japanese team, who used their superior speed and the creative genius of Samoan-born Tusi Pisi to create space behind the South Africans’ defensive line. Although the Cheetahs had a significant height and weight advantage across the forward pack, the set pieces were evenly contested. The windless stadium assisted the Japanese strategy of contestable kicking and also helped both teams’ attempts at conversions and penalties.
Sunwolves speed machine Akihito Yamada crossed for three tries in the first half, and his team led 28-13 lead at the break. Pisi converted all four of his team’s first-half tries. The South Africans scored a first-half converted try and kicked two penalty goals.
Two and a half minutes into the second half, Pisi extended the lead to 18 points, and it looked like the Japanese team was on track to score an upset victory on its first trip to Singapore. But two minutes later, after an interesting interchange where both teams appeared to have infringed, play was allowed to continue and the Cheetahs’ backrower Uzair Cassiem scored a try from close range. Daniel Marais converted and the score was 31-20.
In the 54th minute, Marais used his 98-kilogram bulk to break through a feeble Sunwolves defensive line and score under the posts. The conversion was successful and the Cheetahs had clawed back to 31-27. Three minutes later, Pisi missed what turned out to be a critical penalty attempt from 45 metres out.
Attention must be drawn to a critical incident in the match, which occurred less than 60 seconds after Pisi’s wayward shot at goal.
In broken play, the Cheetahs’ utility back Fred Zeilinga kicked the ball deep into Sunwolves territory and Pisi gathered the ball inside the 22 to make a clearing kick. But the Cheetahs’ wing three-quarter Raymond Rhule had been chasing the kick. After Pisi had cleared the ball, but while he was still in the air, Rhule delivered a brutal hip and shoulder to the flyhalf’s head, and Pisi fell heavily. Rhule’s challenge on Pisi looked bad in real time, and it looks a lot worse on the replay.
For a long time in international and Super Rugby, referees have dealt harshly with incidents such as these. The vulnerable kicker in the air must be protected. The referee had no other option than to reach for a yellow or red card. To be fair, the referee may not have seen the incident and he did converse with his supporting officials before deciding to issue a penalty only. However, he had the benefit of considering endless replays of the incident before deciding that a penalty was sufficient.
In the 60th minute, the Sunwolves were awarded a penalty shot which Pisi did not take, perhaps still shaken by the earlier shoulder charge. Inside centre Yu Tamura was unsuccessful with the penalty attempt.
Under sustained pressure, the Sunwolves defensive line held until Pisi was substituted ten minutes later. Following a collapsed ruck close to their try-line, the Sunwolves lost Queensland import Ed Quirk to the sin-bin for a cynical foul. The yellow card for this offence seemed appropriate, but where was the equivalent punishment against the Cheetahs winger 13 minutes earlier?
The Cheetahs scored a try from the lineout after the sin-binning of Quirk, which gave them a one-point lead. They managed to defend this lead until full-time.
It was a scrappy and yet at times entertaining game.
The referees are professionals and will no doubt act as such for the majority of their time on the field. They are human, and thus are entitled to make mistakes. But the less we see decisions like the one on Saturday, the better it will be for the competition.
It was a potentially game-changing act that needed punishing, and it wasn’t dealt with strongly enough.
