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Thomas Ramos gives his take on controversial Cheslin Kolbe World Cup charge down
By Josh Raisey
Of all the moments at the Rugby World Cup, there is a case that none was more important that Cheslin Kolbe’s charge down in the quarter-final.
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The South Africa winger was able to prevent Thomas Ramos from adding an extra two points after a France try in the first-half, as the Springboks went on to win by a solitary point at the Stade de France. Less than two weeks later they were winning the World Cup.
A month on, this is understandably still a raw topic for the France fullback, moreso because he is still questioning the legality of Kolbe’s run.
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A player is well within the laws of the game to attempt to charge down a conversion, but they must be behind the try line when the kicker begins their run-up. That was questioned by plenty after South Africa’s win, and Ramos himself is not convinced his former Toulouse teammate was onside.
Speaking to Midi Olympique recently, the 28-year-old addressed the controversial charge down. He said (translated by Google): “At first I have an effect of surprise. I say to myself: damn, that happened to me! Watching the match again, I don’t feel like I’ve changed anything in my routine.
“When everyone says to you: ‘he left before,’ you want to say it too. I believe that, according to the exact rule, his feet must be behind the line. By the time he leaves, he has the foot on the line. But, once again, we can blame Ben O’Keeffe. But if the video referee had wanted to watch again, or had watched again the image, and considering that there was a fault, he had time to call the referee. It was more the responsibility of the video refereeing. These are two points which could have helped us win…”
That was not the only regret that Ramos had after the match, as he went on to list the areas in which Les Bleus went wrong in the 29-28 loss in Paris.
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“High balls, we could and should have done better,” he said. “There are 14 points that come from there.
“Maybe we could have been a little more ambitious when we were four points behind going into touch. We were really strong up front. We took the three points.
“We could have – to have been able to score on this action where Etzebeth hits the ball. These are frustrating actions.”
Kolbe slowed down the guy was that slow 🤣
He might do better in his playing of the game, if he learned the lesson in that charge-down:
That’s the level of commitment required to win the world cup.
Sorry for him that he can’t see that.
I suppose that is why he’ll never win a world cup. Poor guy.
Haha you gotta love the brutality that Google translate delivers…
Why France lost:
1: Galthie decision to leave Dupont on the pitch versus Namibia when itw as obvious he was being targetted
2: France not analysing their own defence for weaknesses before the SA match. NZ had exposed weaknessses on the defensive wing..twice. France didnt address this and allowed SA to stay in the game off France errors.
3: Poor referreing and TMO. We know the story but especially look at Arendse pushing Fickou into two French players for first try.
4: Given all of the above and a tight game: France’s inability to win a tight game. They won tight games by individual brilliance before the RWC, but in a knock out stage you rarely see games decided like that.
Am I the only one who saw Arendse pushing Fickou into two other French players causing them to fumble and giving him a clear run in for the try???
Ok so NZ is saying the TMO has done too much. Now France is saying the TMO has not done enough.
Winners make their own luck. Losers whine about winners being lucky...
Stop whinging like a “ Tom Curry”😄
The whole world cup suffered from bad ref decisions.
There needs to be changes to make the rules easier to call .especially round about the kicking and scrums.
What is evidently clear is that France, England and New Zealand all had to endure contentious outcomes in each of SAs respective matches. How that is seen in future years is anybody’s guess, but there will be a lot of bitterness over the next few years, no doubt.
Boks clearly showed ability to score more than their opponents throughout the tournament, so there is zero guarantee of a Fr win had the conversion succeeded, Ramos should be talking about speeding up his kicking routine, plus Cheslin slowed down, he was always going to charge that one down as for eg he knows exactly how long Ramos takes - its slow and deliberate.