World Rugby admits Australia’s winning penalty against Scotland shouldn’t have

Bernard Foley took the last-minute penalty mistakenly awarded to Australia to get three points and a 35-34 Wallabies win.

After reviewing television images, a World Rugby review committee said it was “clear” that after the knock-on, Australia’s Nick Phipps touched the ball and that a player can be put onside by an opponent who intentionally plays the ball.

Former Scotland captain Gavin Hastings called the Joubert decision “the worst things I have seen on a rugby field in a long time” and that the South African should be sent home and not allowed referee a test match ever again.

Last night the sport’s global governing body, World Rugby, confirmed that Joubert had made the wrong decision to award Australia a penalty.

It failed to make any mention of the South African’s freaky behaviour in running off the pitch the moment he blew the final whistle.

The Scottish Rugby Union told AFP it would make no comment on the decision, indicating the storm was now over and the result should be left to stand. He said: “The referee has not explained to me why he did that”.

Joubert’s ruling came under attack from several former internationals.

Those in support of Joubert have spoken glowingly about the man off the rugby field, an area no one has disputed, but that’s not the issue here.

World Rugby’s rules clearly state that the TMO can only be used to determine acts of foul play, ruling on an infringement in the build-up to a try and to check the grounding of the ball and kicks at goal – but not whether the penalty for offside was correct.

“Someone threw a bottle at him, didn’t he?”

Cheika was critical of the pundits’ reactions, saying: “Unfortunately, in this instance, people have taken the game off the field and got quite personal about it”.

Inevitably given his central role in one of the most controversial refereeing decisions in rugby history, Joubert’s tournament is over after Wayne Barnes and Jerome Garces were appointed to oversee this weekend’s semi-finals.

“I really feel for the ref. I genuinely feel for him”.

“People can say what they want, we are just concentrating on Argentina”.

“Craig is definitely in the top four referees in the world and that’s why he has been chosen to do the quarter-finals onwards. I’d be racing off, too, if I saw a bottle coming”, said Cheika, who has been sanctioned in the past for criticizing match officials. “I do think it’s important to acknowledge everyone who participated on match day, so I’m not saying it’s a good look at all”. “I don’t think anything of him going off quickly”.

Despite admitting one of their referees made a mistake that effectively cost Scotland a place in the semi-final, World Rugby chief executive Brett Gosper defended Joubert on Monday evening: “There are highly paid professional rugby players out there making mistakes and dropping balls but, of course, they don’t get as vilified as match officials do”, said Gosper.