Jokes aside, I may be alone here, but I thought most of the big calls were right.
The yellow card on Hooper seemed harsh, but I think he called 4-5 penalty advantages in the one passage of play on our line. If the situations were reversed I would want a yellow, otherwise you essentially send the message that if under penalty advantage the best thing to do is keep giving away more penalties to avoid letting in a try.
Beale’s looked to me a clear yellow in real time. In slow mo his palms do appear pointing up - but I still don’t believe he has trying to catch the ball.
Hooper’s offside for the try was again hard to avoid - he can’t stop on a dime - but by the letter of the law it is offside. He is not able to advance prior to being put inside.
I don’t think you could conclusively say that the ball hit the line on England’s try, so it was fair to award it.
The only one I think wasn’t handled correctly is Koriobete’s try. O’Keefe asked to see if the defenders were onside. I don’t believe the video ref ever played the correct angles yet he said he was satisfied that Robshaw was. I think later replays have clearly showed he wasn’t. At that point it is at least a penalty to Australia. But - in my mind - if Robshaw is offside he has no right to impede Koriobete and, therefore Moore’s position is irrelevant, and there was no other defender there to make the tackle. I think it should have been a try.
But that’s rugby. We had enough chances to win and we didn’t. The ref didn’t drop any balls, miss any tackles or not chase hard enough on kicks.
I do congratulate Cheika on his direct comments to the press. Unfortunately he has painted a huge target on himself and they were needling him to blow up, but I enjoyed watching him turn the tables and call them out on it.
