Scotland vs France

You can't see the line in the above photo, but it's obvious from this shot that it was grounded and there was a separate shot that showed this was beyond the try line. Not sure if both criteria have to be satisfied in the same image, but that's a stupid law if that's the case. One showing the position and one showing the grounding should be enough.

The big issue is the ref bottled it and sent it to the TMO, who in turn bottled it right back and left it up to the ref. You can listen back to their conversation from around the end of the 82nd minute mark.

Ref: "there is the ball on the ground"

TMO: "I'm just going to rock and roll it for you, stand by"

Ref: "So you're saying the ball was initially on the foot and then it was grounded in goal. So I need to change my original decision?

TMO: Yes........

Ref: ...............pause.......

TMO: Let me just check if I can clearly see the ball on the ground.....

If we'd been denied like this against NZ in the World Cup, we'd still be talking about it months later. Same will happen if we're denied a grand slam over something similar.

Agreed, but that never stopped former Referees like Doyle casually giving their opinion. It was an extremely difficult situation for the officials - they must adjudicate as if it's the first minute of the game and only on the facts as they see it. That this incident meant a win or a loss is, in refereeing terms, neither here nor there.

Who'd be a ref, eh ?

Can you show me an image of the ball not under control?

ref called it held up in real time. at that point it's no try.

the the tmo has to definitely see the ball grounded which he can't.

so on pitch decision stands.

it's really quite simple.

whether it under control or not, held up or not is immaterial it might be, but it can't be proved definitively.

You keep saying its simple as if I dont understand what happened.

I understand what happened perfectly well, the point I am raising is that its wrong and makes the game look bad/stupid when a try like that isnt awarded.

It also shows a lack of consistency when sometimes the ref will award a try even though he clearly cant see a grounding and other times he wont.

I'm not sure how or why you have come to the conclusion he thought he was wrong. The TMO seemed to instruct him to award the try because he felt the ball was grounded but then realised that there wasn't clear evidence the ball was grounded legally on or beyond the try line. I don't understand how people can argue a try should be award when there isn't clear evidence a try has been scored. It seems a strange logic to me.

I can't think of any examples where a ref awards a try even though he doesn't think he should be awarding one. What examples given where that has happened?

Because the referees job is to make decisions and implement the laws of the game. The ref is responsible for this and this happens at every level of rugby. I don't know why the role of the referee would suddenly be diminished at the most important level. It also complete undermines the judgement of the referee and i would consider it somewhat disrespectful if I was a referee.

I don't think we're ever going to agree on this.

Its really simple for me. The ref saw the ball held up in the in goal area. He never saw the ball grounded in the in goal area. Hence he didn't award the try.

Again, I don't disagree that the protocols were not followed, my argument is that they are wrong and let the game down in these scenarios. I'm not saying anyone did anything "wrong".

I believe then in situations of doubt, the on field decision should be "try" and let the TMO overrule, if he has definitive evidence to do so.

I think most people would agree that in all likelihood the try was scored?

Isn't Law 17 about the Mark? 21.1 is grounding?

In my opinion we have (albeit separately) evidence of:

1) the ball on the ground

2) the ball over the line

3) the ball in the hands/arms of a Scottish player

Using the timestamps its simple enough to get all three at the same time, which is a grounding, right?

I think any scenario where you can 100% correctly follow the process but have pretty much everyone agree that we ended up with the "wrong" result means something needs to be looked at.

There was no one to blame for what happened here, everyone 100% did their job correctly, but, again IMO, the referee should be free to change his mind himself, based on additional evidence. It should be the case that only the TMO with 100% certainty can overrule him.

Is it written anywhere that the referee cannot change his mind? As I'm sure I have seen them do it multiple times, before the TMO even brings it up?

No. What did they have to say?

Every other team has handked this differently though. I can't ever remember any other team demanding World Rugby give a public apology for an error made in a game. I mean, given what happened in the recent World Cup it didn't happen then AFAIK so for a team to do for a 6 nations match seems absolutely ridiculous.

We will agree to disagree, I think demanding a public apology for an error from the governing body is well out of order. And doing it for a situation where the decision reached was correct is even more ridiculous.

I don't think that's as bad myself, unless they are specifically told not to divulge comments.

I don't care too much about this whole furore, but just on this; no, it's not. Because that was done after the fact without the external public pressure put on to influence the decision. This demanding of a public apology before WR have said anything about it is putting pressure on externally and publicly, howevert his leaked. Situations aren't the same.