SIX months on from the Rugby World Cup quarter-final between Scotland and Australia, referee Craig Joubert has offered an explanation for his bizarre behaviour at the end of the game.
The Wallabies won 35-34 thanks to a late penalty erroneously awarded by Joubert, who then ran off the pitch at the end of the game, baffling Scotland captain Greig Laidlaw and his team-mates. At the time, it looked like a panicky decision made by a man who knew he had made a serious mistake - and in the days following the game World Rugby confirmed that the penalty award had indeed been a mistake. Now, however, Joubert has sought to portray his action as a diplomatic piece of conflict avoidance.
“In my head was a desire to avoid any possible unseemly confrontation that would mar what had been a wonderful occasion,” the South African told the Daily Telegraph. “I had it in my mind somewhere that there had been an incident between the official and the England coaches in their match against Australia and I just didn’t want any of that to happen. That was my thinking - not for myself, but for the situation.
“In hindsight, would I have reconsidered that decision? Absolutely.”
The clear inference to be drawn from Joubert’s explanation is that he expected one or more members of the Scotland party to over-react. However, he added that he has since had cordial meetings with both Laidlaw and Scotland head coach Vern Cotter, having come into contact with both around the team’s Six Nations Championship match in Dublin last month, at which he was one of the touch judges.
“I had a coffee with Vern before the game and a beer with Greig afterwards,” he added. “They were very natural and typical interactions which I enjoyed.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel