Good News
For Nigel Owens, albeit it probably did not feel that way for the passionate little Welshman as he prepared to take charge of the quarter-final between France and New Zealand while his compatriots were, after yet another gallant performance, being eliminated from the World Cup.
If there was any doubt about Owens being the best referee in the world we got a reminder as, for by no means the first time, he offered a text-book example of how to utilise the TV replay official (TMO) in the course of that match.
An incident having come to his attention and being worthy of a second look he watched as the TMO did and waited for the feedback.
Just as it seemed his colleague was building towards recommending a red card, observing that Louis Picamoles had used a clenched fist in making the illegal challenge in question, however, Owens intervened to give his analysis.
“What I saw was a clenched fist but nothing untoward around the area of the eyes and it wasn’t a punch,” he said, in a brief sentence taking away the options that would have removed the Frenchman from the rest of the game.
It was exactly the right call, avoided what was already veering towards a no-contest being even more distorted than All Black superiority was making it and hopefully, presuming the citing officer does not offer a different interpretation of events.
Now that his Wales are out there is, then, surely only one serious contender to referee this year’s World Cup final.
Bad News
For bookies William Hill who so narrowly missed out on taking £50,000 on the individual with more money than sense who had placed that amount of money on Australia to beat Scotland at odds of 8 to one on.
That said it probably took much more of a toll on the punter in question in those closing stages when it looked increasingly as if Scotland were going to eclipse Japan’s effort against South Africa in producing the biggest shock of this tournament since, at the very worst, they were only going to have to shell out £6250.
“More and more people are backing Australia not just to beat Scotland but to win the tournament,” Rupert Adams, a spokesman for William Hill had claimed before the game. “This bet is a gutsy call and we believe that it is the biggest single bet of the tournament so far.”
Somehow or another the suspicion has to be that for all the credit Scotland deserved at Twickenham, fewer and fewer people will be backing these Aussies when that performance is compared to the way the All Blacks ripped France to shreds the previous day.
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