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'Serious controversy here': Quins' win questioned as Bath make report

Irne Herbst of Harlequins during the Gallagher Premiership Rugby match between Harlequins and Bath Rugby at The Stoop on March 30, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by Steve Bardens/Getty Images)

It looks like Harelquins’ thrilling 40-36 Gallagher Premiership victory over Bath could yet be marred by controversy after a complaint has been made that a player returned to the field before his sin-binning had elapsed.

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Despite trailing significantly, Bath staged a remarkable comeback in the latter half sparked by tries from Will Muir, Alfie Barbeary and others.

However, Bath’s attempt to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat may have been partially thwarted by the presence of a sin-binned player on the pitch, giving the hosts an unfair advantage.

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Steven Kitshoff on the Behind the Ruck hot seat

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Steven Kitshoff on the Behind the Ruck hot seat

According to the television time clock, it appears that second-row replacement Irne Herbst, who was carded at 63 minutes, was back on the pitch and playing just eight minutes later, completing a clearout out at a ruck at 71 minutes.

Rugby Inside Line wrote on X: “There could be some serious controversy here. 63:52 – Herbst yellow carded 71:52 – Yellow card still says 3:18 71:58 – Herbst makes the tackle and clears out the ruck If the TV clocks are correct he is on the pitch two minutes early… Potentially huge ramifications.”

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Bath director of rugby Johann van Graan says he was aware of the incident and has reported it to match officials, implying that he expects something will come of the matter.

‘Ja, it seemed like it,” said Van Graan when asked by TNT Sports about whether or not a player had returned early from the bin. “We flagged it to the referee afterwards so I’ll trust the process.”

In the second weekend in a row that Gallagher Premiership officials have been thrown into the spotlight, following last weekend’s TMO audio faux pas during last weekend’s Harelquins loss to Saracens.

Former England international Austin Healey, who was working as part of TNT Sports’ team at the match, spotted a clear-out by Harlequins captain Stephan Lewies, when he appeared to slide on his knees into Saracens fly-half Owen Farrell.

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And TMO Stuart Terheege was overheard telling referee Christophe Ridley on a microphone during the live broadcast: “The problem I have got now is that it looks like Austin has instigated it, because we’re late, so I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

Lewies had received a yellow card during the first-half of a game that Saracens won 52-7 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

additional reporting PA

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5 Comments
M
Mikkel 264 days ago

I've read 3 articles about this so far and the only person defending the mistake below every one of them is BigMaul.

This was not a refereeing mistake, as the ref didn't even know. It was a mistake by other officials for which there was no excuse. If an official can't read a clock counting down from 10 minutes, step aside and let someone else do it.

B
BigMaul 266 days ago

Not sure what controversy or ramifications are implied here.

The ref made a mistake. Happens every game.

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JW 6 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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