"A try would probably have been scored" - that is what the referee has to believe for a penalty try to be awarded after an offence by the defending side. "Probably" is the key word, which means the attacking side should have the benefit of any doubt.
The law providing for a penalty try is a good one. Soccer, plagued by deliberate fouls because most teams are prepared to accept any punishment rather than concede a goal, is badly in need of something like it.
However, the awarding of a penalty try - always under the posts, which means a virtually guaranteed seven-point score - depends on having a referee who is up with the game and confident. Paul Marks, who was in charge of the Sharks match against the Waratahs, failed to follow through when he penalised the Waratahs' Kurtley Beale for deliberately knocking forward the potentially match-winning pass from Stefan Terblanche to a galloping Ryan Kankowski.
The penalty and the yellow card showed that Marks viewed the offence as cynical. Therefore, he can only have decided there was a probability (not possibility) that Kankowski would have been stopped by the Waratahs defence. Even the notoriously one-eyed Australian commentators thought there had been no chance of that. They argued that a seven-pointer should have been awarded. Instead the Sharks lost 25-21.
When things go wrong in rugby, troubles come not in single spies but in battalions. Losing can get to be a habit, but it's worse than it looks for the Sharks. What has hardly been noticed is that they have lost nine of their last 10 Super 14 matches. Since April 4 last year, they have beaten only the Highlanders. Of the nine defeats, five were in Durban. The Lions, of whom much was expected under the coaching of former Natalian Dick Muir, are also serial losers from last year: seven defeats in their last eight matches.
But the Stormers and the Cheetahs are building confidence and beginning to look like they could be serial winners, like the Bulls.
The Stormers literally couldn't get their hands on the ball for the first six minutes of their match against the Highlanders, and after 12 minutes they'd had only 30% of the possession. Yet after another 20 minutes they were 16-0 up, and went on to win 33-0. That showed composure, backed by a focus on doing things at high speed. The tone was set by scrumhalf Dewaldt Duvenage. Not for him the two or three steps before passing; or looking left, right and left again (as if crossing the road) before clearing from the base of the rucks.
Sometimes you wonder if there is anyone in charge of the Super 14. The Hurricanes took the field in Bloemfontein against the Cheetahs in a black-and-grey kit that suggested they were pretending to be the Sharks. This illusion was evidently encouraging for the Free Staters, who haven't lost to the Sharks since 2008. Like the Stormers, the Cheetahs emphasised pace and cocky commitment and ran the Hurricanes off their feet for an unexpected 29-12 win. The paradox was that the home side's points were all from penalties, except for Kabamba Floors's try.
It was a case where creative, running rugby produced pressure that led to penalties - a welcome reminder that thrilling rugby doesn't always depend on tries being scored.
Ranking the Analysts 2009
