England winger David Strettle said officials should have given him the benefit of any doubt after he had a ‘try’ disallowed by the video referee in the closing seconds of a dramatic 19-12 Six Nations rugby loss to Wales.
The home side were trailing by seven points in front of a full-house at Twickenham on Saturday when, with the last move of the match, Strettle went in at the corner under pressure from the Wales trio of Leigh Halfpenny, George North and Jonathan Davies.
Given the pile of bodies, it was no surprise when referee Steve Walsh referred the decision of “try or no try” to Scottish television match official Iain Ramage.
There was then a nail-biting several minutes before Ramage decided no try had been scored. Even if he had ruled in the host’s favour, England would still have needed to have kicked the tricky conversion from out on the right touchline to draw the match.
As it was Wales, who scored the only try of the game minutes earlier through replacement Scott Williams, won 19-12 to take the Triple Crown and stay on course for a Grand Slam after seeing off an England team that had won both its previous two matches this tournament.
“I thought I had scored,” said Strettle.
“I thought when they flipped me on my back I had got downward pressure. When they showed it on the big screen it looked like it went down as well … You hope with the video referee that if it is indecisive that it would go with the attacking team. It is frustrating when things don’t go your way.”
England interim coach Stuart Lancaster was more diplomatic, saying of Ramage’s call: “Games are lost not on one decision but on lots of things that happen in the course of the game. I don’t want to dwell too much on that decision.”
Wales boss Warren Gatland said he’d have had no problems if Ramage had given a try.
“If it had been awarded a try we wouldn’t have complained. Toby (Flood) would still have had to kick a conversion to tie the game,” he said.
Meanwhile Ireland coach Declan Kidney refused to get carried away by Ireland’s 42-10 victory over Italy at Lansdowne Road on Saturday to claim their first win of this year’s Six Nations tournament and end a run of three successive home defeats.
The Irish scored five tries – including two from Tommy Bowe – to Italy’s one to extend their run of Six Nations victories over the Italians to 13.