That was very interesting analysis by Austin and I commend everybody to listen to/watch it. For those who don't: this is what I wrote in response.
I thought watching the game live that McCaw was culpable in coming in from the side, but the penalty wasn't given for that. I also thought that Ioane knocked the ball on, and was surprised that he didn't.
The pass to Fainga'a could have been called up, but those are allowed all the time and you could go back and see such passes allowed to the Crusaders in the game without raising a sweat.
The pass to Tapuai looked forward but I had the benefit of viewing the incident on my TV through the lens of an elevated camera. CSI investigators would analyse the matter by determining where the three officials were at the time of the pass, and deducing what they saw at ground level, before calling them to account.
If you look at the replay from the time the ball was thrown to the lineout: Dickinson was on the Oz side of it and must have been nearly 10 metres behind at the time of the pass. He had no chance to rule on the matter. The lineout AR was flat footed because of his flag work and wouldn't have been much closer to the line of the pass by the time he started running than the ref was. Also, there is every chance that all the Crusaders lineout participants rushing towards Genia would have obscured the AR's view anyway. There were a few of them.
What about the AR on the other side of the field? Typically he lines up with the offside line of defenders; so he was no doubt closer to the line of the pass than the other two officials and may have been exactly in line. But did he see the ball delivered to judge the line? Potentially there were two bodies obscuring his view at the exact moment of the pass: those belonging to attempted tackler SBW, and Tapuai himself. Moreover, he was 50 metres away from the action.
I would be ropeable if that happened to an Oz team but once I looked at the forensics maybe I would settle down. Maybe not though.
On the matter of McCaw's hands in the ruck there is one thing that always gets up my nose: lack of clarity about what the defenders' rights are after a ruck collapses. We know the definition of what a ruck is, but time and time again we see defending players getting pinged after everybody has gone to ground. What is left is not defined. I call it a "pile" as the definition of "ruck" cannot be used when players are not in contact over the ball. In the absence of a ruck does the "tackle" definition succeed it - or is it open play?
Maybe there is a guideline or ruling that says that the laws relating to a ruck prevail after a collapse up until the ball is cleared, but I've never seen any reference to it.
One thing for sure: defenders should always be on their guard that a ruck can, rightly or wrongly, still be deemed to be a ruck even after a collapse. Whether they attempt to pick up the ball, as McCaw did, or have gone from last feet on the collapse to tackle the scrummie who has hands on, they should know that they could be sanctioned. When counter-rucking it is much safer to go past the ball for others to pick it up, than pick it up oneself.
I was surprised that McCaw was penalised, not because of the merits of argument that it was a fair cop,or not, but because the All Black captain usually gets away with those 50/50 calls.
This was one that went against him.
