New Zealand referee Ben O’Keeffe insists that he had a ‘clear picture’ when he awarded the Springboks a match-winning scrum penalty in the World Cup semi-final against England.
Steve Borthwick’s men held a 12-6 half-time lead during an intense last-four encounter, but Rassie Erasmus’ charges fought their way back into the game through the boot of replacement fly-half Handre Pollard.
Into the final 10 minutes of the semi-final, England had a two-point advantage when the Springboks had a feed to a scrum on the halfway line. After a few resets, referee O’Keeffe awarded a penalty to South Africa, and Pollard dissected the posts to put the Boks into a one-point lead and book their place in the final.
Ellis Genge’s verdict
In a recent interview, England prop Ellis Genge, who was involved in that scrum, reflected on that decision, stating that he still has open wounds from the match.
“The feeling after that semi of losing by a point and ultimately a penalty 40 metres out coming from our scrum, whether the decision was right or wrong. It hurts, like thanks for bringing that up. But yeah, so it’s an open wound, and you just got to make sure it don’t open back up,” he told the Daily Mail.
Asked why that was so wounding, he replied: “It’s a f–king World Cup. It’s a World Cup semi-final. The penalty for them to go ahead was from a scrum penalty that I was involved in, against me. So, obviously, it’s going to make you feel a certain way, isn’t it? Like you’ve let the f–king nation down.
“I ain’t going to go into it. I don’t want to f–king reopen a can of worms, but you watch the scrums from that game and make your own mind up.”
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Ben O’Keeffe: Influencing the game in the right way
O’Keeffe has now given his verdict on that decisive call in what was the biggest game of his officiating career. The referee explained that officials prepare for making big calls like that one and insisted that he wanted to ensure that he got the correct decision and wanted a clear picture before blowing his whistle.
“I have a thing: a lot of referees do, with 10 minutes to go in a game when it’s tight, I knew what the score was going to be. You have to make the correct decision, which is to blow your whistle. You also have to make the correct decision that you blow as well. So, you don’t want to make an error,” he told the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin.
“I’m very sharp in those last 10 minutes of a tight game. I think a lot of my games this season have been quite tight as well. You want to make sure that you are influencing or impacting the game in the right way so that the players win the game.”
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“We had a knee on the ground.”
Zoning in on the scrum call, he continued: “My understanding is that we had a scrum, we had an infringement by England, we had a few resets, and then you took the clear one. We had a knee on the ground.
“I made sure it was a really clear picture to give because I think if I didn’t give it, and we go the other way, then obviously there’s a really clear decision that I’ve missed there.
“In those moments, that’s what you train for during the week to be really clear; you train for it during the whole season as well. So, big, big, big game to sort of come off on and to make that decision; I was pretty proud as well.”
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