Rugby videos of tackles, tries, funny incidents and more: Last minute controversy as Samoa win the London Sevens

Monday, May 26, 2008

Last minute controversy as Samoa win the London Sevens

This weekend saw Samoa beat Fiji 19-14 in a bruising final at Twickenham to win the London Sevens title, their third ever World Series Cup title.

Lolo Lui scored a quick fire hat trick of tries to give Samoa an early 19-0 lead and although Fiji crossed just before the break through Timoci Matanavou, and then in the second half through Sailosi Rabonaqica, it proved too little too late.

The great comeback was nearly complete as Nasoni Roko dived over for the late try to equalise, only to be called back by referee David Keane after a late tackle in the build-up was ruled by the touch judge.

Heartbreak for Fiji who had done so well to get back into the match, and almost win it. Congrats to Samoa though, who proved once again just how lethal they can be on the day.

As for the crucial final decision, marginal, or the correct call?

Note: Despite having just posted the final, we'll continue to bring you various other quality moments from the London Sevens, so please bare with us if they get posted in drips and drabs.
Time: Nice full highlights for you guys with good bandwidth - 09:10

Labels: Sevens

i watched this match live yesterday and was kept perched on the edge of my seat..
it's a shame that a bit of poor refereeing (dont no quite how to spell it) cost fiji the tournament.

also could rugbydump please put up some more highlights of the other matches it was a great tournament and it bodes well as a taster of whats to come a murrayfield next weekend

By Anonymous, at May 26, 2008 7:31 pm
What a terrible decision, he was committed to the tackle before he even passed!

By Anonymous, at May 26, 2008 7:36 pm
What a call! Almost searching for a reason to denie the try

poor fidji

By Anonymous, at May 26, 2008 7:45 pm
douche bag

By Anonymous, at May 26, 2008 7:51 pm
terrible call. of course cakau's gonna tackle the guy. he came all the way across and the samoan player had his back to him. cakau's probably thinking that the samoan guy either knows he's coming and might try to step him, or he doesn't know he's coming, in which case, cakau still can't see what he's doing with the ball. after a "bruising encounter" they make that call at that stage of the game, stealing it from fiji? terrible.

By Anonymous, at May 26, 2008 7:53 pm
Glad we're all agreed. Awful decision. 1) No doubt that he was fully committed before the ball was passed and 2) the gap between pass and tackle was less than half a second on the slow motion replay. That's the second final this week that the touch-judge has come along and made the ref give a bullshit call.

By Anonymous, at May 26, 2008 8:40 pm
i was der nd it was DEFF a try! no doubt bout it... da hole stadium new it! it was a hard tackle (in reaction to som earlyer tackles sadly not featured on da highlights) but it wasnt late! wats weird was da anouncer at twickernam had already said it was a try and da points bored had been changed... da reff went to confirm it so he thought it was a try b4 tlkin 2 da touch judge!

also worth noting the samoan player hu passed had his bk to da touch judge hu called da ref ova so how wuld he no? poor refing.

but a GREAT tournament! PLEASE PLEASE include englands defeat of new zealand! was historic! biggs was amazin

By Anonymous, at May 26, 2008 8:55 pm
that was the biggest load of bullshit i ever saw...the touch judge isnt there to tell the ref wat happened infront of his eyes and the ref shoudlnt have taken his advice, dumb cunts cost fiji the game, how the hell refs that incompetent got to such a high level is beyond me, worst decision ive ever seen in rugby, if you can find a worse one i'd love to see it

By Anonymous, at May 26, 2008 9:59 pm
Totally incompetent

By Anonymous, at May 26, 2008 10:15 pm
does anyonyone know if the ref can overule the touch juge (i thought he could) as the ref was on the spot, with a better view

By Anonymous, at May 26, 2008 10:45 pm
such crap, absolutely ruined an ace game of rugby for me, can't believe how Fiji must feel! It's a pity such officious interfering pricks become touch judges, terrible call.

Hope Fiji win in Edinburgh

By Anonymous, at May 26, 2008 10:50 pm
great and brave call..was looking to hurt the samoan player after the ball was passed.

By Anonymous, at May 26, 2008 10:54 pm
horrible decision..but as long as the ref didn't see it and the touchie did den the touchie makes the call...still doesn't make anything better tho..

By sobered, at May 26, 2008 10:56 pm
unfortunate for fiji, definately a poor call from ANOTHER pedantic touch judge! grr..paddy o'brien should be reading the comments around the web on his beloved referees and touch judges so he can learn a thing or too.

anyway - great to see an all-nesian final again!!

By Anonymous, at May 26, 2008 10:57 pm
that wasnt late at all

By sebastian, at May 26, 2008 11:07 pm
worst decision ever

By Anonymous, at May 26, 2008 11:26 pm
You need to make sure you get the Scotland try where the player passes it backwards completely blind!

By Niall, at May 27, 2008 12:05 am
Bad call Fiji should of won that game. He was way committed to the tackle before the pass which was a second before the hit. BAD CALL.

By Hendrick, at May 27, 2008 12:25 am
that was a bad call, but evens it up i think. the samoan bloke who got sin-binned 4 a spear tackle. when the bloke who he tackled ended up landed on his side, then a fijian takes out a samoan without the ball and hurts him. then nothing happens 2 him. sorry, but it felt like justice

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 12:50 am
tough call to make, but in this game you must play what the ref calls even if its a terrible decision.

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 2:24 am
The tackle could not have been helped, because he was commited to the tackle. If he given the pass earlier to the player, which the opposite player had time to read before making the tackle, that would call for a disallowence but not in this case. bad call tbh by the ref

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 2:45 am
OMFG.. that was such a screwed up call.. the touch judge sucks! such a shame for fiji after they put in so much to make the come back.. useless touch judge..

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 3:02 am
There was this awesome step by an australian guy! can someone tel me where to find it. it was shown on Sportscentre haha.

happened at the london sevens too i think

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 4:56 am
horrible decision by the touch juge
touch juge sucks
elrolo: i think the ef can overrule the touch juge but even in union refs just follow the juges' opinions ...
TERRIBLE CALL
what a shame for fiji

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 8:32 am
sure - the decision was highly questionable. some would even say blatantly wrong - but we should not loose sight of the fact that refs call what they see - although some would argue they might be blind in that case! regardless - we still need to tolerate decisions made, it's part of the game.

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 8:58 am
Wow, the fix was definitely in on this play.

I understand that bad calls happen and it's part of the game. I also agree that touch-judges should be given a little more authority in helping the referee make calls, especially for incidents that occur behind the referee's back or away from the action of the game.

However, in this case, the tackle occurred DIRECTLY IN FRONT of the referee. He didn't think twice about it. It wasn't like this tackle came behind the referee's back where he couldn't get a clear view. I don't understand how the referee could allow this when he saw the tackle happen right in front of him as he OBVIOUSLY had the best view and angle to the entire match.

Poor Fiji, the fix was definitely in on this one. Who was that touch-judge, and someone check his bank accounts.

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 9:11 am
I couldn't believe that this try was disallowed! He was committed to the tackle, and it was very close to when the ball left hand. The Samoans weren't even complaining about it. That kind of thing happenes all the time. People line up their hits and some people draw defenders completely and pass just before tackle.

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 9:17 am
how was that l8???? i cant beliv that they would take that away frm fiji. gr8 running by roko for the "try" fiji should have won that. they would have got the conversion easily.

fijiboypois

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 11:01 am
im sorry, but fiji fully deserved to have that final try awarded. The referee was right in front of the tackle when it happened and allowed play to continue. The touch judge who is a lot further away then comes up with a ridiculous decision like that. Surely at the end of the day the referee should have the right to determine decisions like that over the touch judges??
Very unlucky Fiji, especially after their amazing performances in the RWC, they deserve to win more trophies.

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 12:37 pm
Poor decision and, as someone said earlier, the tackle was made in front of the ref, and was in the middle of the pitch a long way from the touch judge. Ref should have thanked the TJ, but let the try stand. Great shame.

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 1:00 pm
poor refeering...
I'm not sure it was a late tackle, the samoan missed his pass despite it

these days, touch judges are not very inspired in their recommandations (yellow card against pelous in the H cup)

congrats to samoa and fidji

By Flooz, at May 27, 2008 1:26 pm
We could see some bad decisions during the weekend. On NZ vs SA (i think), the kiwi scrum-half was given a strange yellow card, and a penalty try was given to the boks. Very strange refering.

The moment of the weekend was Portugal second win against Australia. Great game of the portuguese.

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 1:55 pm
yer was at the tournement as well, wasnt a late tackle, lines man has no idea what hes on about. can there be some vid of the ozzies last game, were some amazing steps by william bishop

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 2:56 pm
1. Not a late hit. As someone else said, the hit was less than half a second after the ball left (the human reastion time is normally quoted as 0.7s). The tackler would also not have been able to see that the ball was passed. Typical touch judge ruining the game - anyone else reckon they're gutted not to be the ref and so try and do his job for him?

2. That wasn't really a spear tackle. When the player hit the floor, he was parallel to it, and so his head wasn't lower than his hips (the definition of a spear tackle I believe).

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 4:37 pm
That was pretty ridiculous, while the tackle was technically late, there's no way they could have seen that in normal time. Also, at around 3:50 Roko was warned for a late tackle, but there was no tackle involved, it was a charge down and they just bumped into each other...

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 8:15 pm
wat a bad call
the refs standing 2 metres away doesnt call it nd then the touch judge comes in nd calls it late
its clearly not as he was commited to the tackle nd he cant see the ball

By Anonymous, at May 27, 2008 11:41 pm
i was watching the game live when it happen and that was not a late tackle and it was terrible , horrible call by the touch judge
which coste fiji the tournament

By Anonymous, at May 28, 2008 3:07 am
Regarding the late hit, I agree with all of the above, that it was a ridiculous call.

However, I do agree with Martin in that it does seem to even up the bad calls in the match. The alleged spear tackle was ridiculous, as he wasn't driven vertically into the ground. Also, Roko should have been yellow-carded from that same passage of play for tackling without the ball.

By Anonymous, at May 28, 2008 9:28 am
terrible decision! and that number 8 (roko?) saved his teammates life with that off the ball tackle ealrier tin the game. the samoan was going to kick his head off!

By Anonymous, at May 28, 2008 2:01 pm
thats a bullshit call fiji was robbed

By Anonymous, at May 28, 2008 7:48 pm
wow... shady call.

By Anonymous, at May 28, 2008 9:57 pm
Yeah, didn't look late to me.
The referee has every right to ignore the touch judge - and in this case, with the tackler right in front of him, I would've hoped he would. Shame we can't hear exactly what passed between them (or through their heads).

By Rawling, at May 29, 2008 12:43 pm
This is why Rugby's losing alot of fans because 2 sides can play a good game only for the ref to decide who wins it at the last minute.

Such a Shame that the referee made such a bad decision he's an idiot whoever he is.

By Anonymous, at June 08, 2008 7:45 am
Samoa has been unlucky throughout the circuit; good to see things bounce their way in London! Go Manu Samoa!

By Anonymous, at July 01, 2008 6:02 pm