spinofflive
It would not have changed the outcome of the game, but this call was pretty outrageous nonetheless (Image: Fox Sports)
It would not have changed the outcome of the game, but this call was pretty outrageous nonetheless (Image: Fox Sports)

SportsJanuary 26, 2023

Something really weird happened in the Silver Ferns game this morning

It would not have changed the outcome of the game, but this call was pretty outrageous nonetheless (Image: Fox Sports)
It would not have changed the outcome of the game, but this call was pretty outrageous nonetheless (Image: Fox Sports)

Alice Webb-Liddall has watched a lot of netball in her life. This was hands down the most confusing five minutes she’s ever seen.

This morning at the crack of dawn, I and presumably no more than 10 or so other New Zealand netball tragics woke up to watch the Silver Ferns take on the Australian Diamonds in the final of the annual netball Quad Series. New Zealand weren’t the favourites to win, and (spoiler alert?) we didn’t.

The Ferns were down by five when the strangest call I’ve ever seen on an international netball occurred. A different call ultimately probably wouldn’t have changed the end result of the game, in which Australia outclassed the Ferns to lift their seventh (of eight) Quad Series trophy. But to me, the score stopped mattering after the 53rd minute because I had receded so far into my mind palace trying to figure out what had just happened that I completely stopped paying attention to the live game.

What happened?

With seven minutes to go in the fourth quarter, the Ferns got the ball downcourt to captain and goal attack Ameliaranne Ekenasio in the goal circle. 

While she pivoted toward the goalpost to put up the shot, a bit of push and shove between Australia’s goal defence and our own goal shoot broke out, causing both players to fall backwards in a tangle. Ekenasio shot and the ball sailed through the net, the she walked over to help her teammate up from the ground. 

Apart from two players hitting the deck, it seemed like a straightforward play. Except it wasn’t, because after both fallen players got back on their feet, referee Anso Kemp called for the clock to be paused, walked over to the other umpire, Gary Burgess, and asked for advice on the proper call to make, considering, in their opinion, “the goal wasn’t scored.”

Aussie GD Courtney Bruce: as confused as the rest of us.

An initial decision was made to give the ball to Australia in the New Zealand shooting circle, for no apparent reason, and after some confused looks from players (both teams), this call was reversed. Kemp and Burgess regrouped.

“I didn’t see the goal being scored,” said Burgess. “Me neither,” said Kemp. Even long-time netball commentator Jenny Woods couldn’t remember if the ball had actually gone through the hoop. 

“I’m not sure what to suggest, if I’m honest,” Burgess told Kemp, while everyone at home was getting ready to watch the replay that would clear up any confusion and confirm the goal. 

During the broadcast replay, the umpires had come to a decision. “It’s going to be a toss up between the goal keep and the goal shooter. Unfortunately we didn’t see the goal being scored because I was looking at the two players going down,” Kemp told perplexed New Zealand shooter Grace Nweke.

YES this is a photo of my laptop screen. There are bigger things on my mind right now.

“We didn’t see the goal being scored,” said Kemp, but I could swear I saw…

Can you see the ball? I can

“We didn’t see the goal being scored.”

The ball, and it’s ghost, travelling right in the direction of the goal

“WE DIDN’T SEE THE GOAL.”

Kemp’s eyes appear to be looking directly at the goal being scored.

There was an obvious solution here: couldn’t the umpires just watch the replay and see the goal being scored with their own eyes?

“Can you watch the replay?” said Nweke. “I can’t do that,” replied Kemp. As though, like a vampire stays clear of mirrors to avoid pondering its own existence, watching a video replay would cause an umpire to ponder their inability to see a goal.

After scouring the international netball rulebook (read: ctrl+F searching a few key words) I could find no rule that said umpires can’t refer to a video replay (and if there is such a rule, WHY?). There are no TMO refs in netball, and I don’t wish there were – it’s a quick game and a TMO would hardly be needed – but there’s got to be a better way to make a decision like this than a basketball-style tip-off, the likes of which are rarely seen past year 9 Saturday social netball – definitely not at the international level.

If not willing to give the point for the goal scored, the call surely then should have had something to do with the contact infringement that led to two players falling to the floor. This one: 

Ouch!

But instead it was put to a 50/50. Ultimately, New Zealand won that game of chance, and scored their rightful point. And then they went on to lose the game by five. 

Maybe vice-captain Wing Attack Gina Crampton summed it up best.

My feelings exactly.

And though Australia was the winner on the day, it felt like the netball rulebook was the real loser. But at least we gained a new meme format to take with us into what should be an exciting rest of 2023 for the Silver Ferns.

Meme: Natalie Wilson
‘If you value The Spinoff and the perspectives we share, support our work by donating today.’
Anna Rawhiti-Connell
— Senior writer
Keep going!
Rugby’s gatekeepers: (L-R) Eddie Jones, Ian Foster, Steve Hansen, Graham Henry, Warren Gatland (Photos: Getty Images / Design: Archi Banal)
Rugby’s gatekeepers: (L-R) Eddie Jones, Ian Foster, Steve Hansen, Graham Henry, Warren Gatland (Photos: Getty Images / Design: Archi Banal)

OPINIONSportsJanuary 26, 2023

The rise and rise of rugby’s ‘super’ coaches

Rugby’s gatekeepers: (L-R) Eddie Jones, Ian Foster, Steve Hansen, Graham Henry, Warren Gatland (Photos: Getty Images / Design: Archi Banal)
Rugby’s gatekeepers: (L-R) Eddie Jones, Ian Foster, Steve Hansen, Graham Henry, Warren Gatland (Photos: Getty Images / Design: Archi Banal)

Where does all the power and influence in world rugby lie? Increasingly, with an exclusive group of top international coaches.

This is an excerpt from The Bounce, a Substack newsletter by Dylan Cleaver.

A learned, rugby-loving friend of mine believes the sport is, to its detriment, being slowly and systematically controlled by a cabal of “super” coaches who have become bigger than the game.

Having watched recent events, it’s easier to see where he’s coming from.

The move to appoint Eddie Jones coach of the Wallabies through to 2027 (and to oversee the Wallaroos’ programme for the next World Cup cycle), makes sense on some levels, but it’s also a painful reflection on where rugby is at. As is parachuting Warren Gatland into the Wales role involuntarily vacated by Wayne Pivac.

There’s been a few people pimping for Dave Rennie this past week, including Stephen Donald who described him as the best coach he’s ever played under. That’s all well and good, but you could mount an equally compelling case that with a win record below 40 percent, Rugby Australia could have been accused of being asleep at the wheel if a “better option” came along and they didn’t take it – the exact same argument that has been used against NZ Rugby as Ian Foster’s record hovers around 70 percent.

I’d put short odds on the irascible Jones getting another payout before 2027 rolls along, but are the Wallabies a better chance of going deep in France later this year than they were a week ago? I’d say so, and that’s the metric that matters when we live in a rugby world that measures itself on a four-yearly basis.

More than that, what Jones’s reappointment reinforces is the idea, perpetuated by a coterie of coaches themselves, that you have to have coached international rugby to coach international rugby. It does not take a genius to decipher the circularity and self-interest of that theory.

It places untold power in the hands of a few who, aided and abetted by compliant administrators and media who slurp up their every word, retain their influence – even when their own careers have finished.

The more I think about the rugby world, the more I start to think my mate not only has an intriguing theory, but that he’s probably right. I mean, could a Brendon McCullum situation ever happen in rugby? Fat chance.

If you want a starting point for when this “accepted wisdom” took root, you can look at Graham Henry’s departure to Wales, his subsequent return and all that followed.

He appointed Steve Hansen as assistant, who had followed Henry’s path to Wales and that pair, either through appointment or influence, have maintained a stranglehold on the All Blacks role that continues today. New Zealand Rugby is now coming up 16 years of the same coaching ethos controlling their flagship brand. Is it any wonder the All Blacks have started to look so stale?

It sent a signal to the rest of the world that certain coaches are an untouchable breed with a rugby IQ that remains incomprehensible for those who haven’t coached at the sharpest end of the game. It’s been consciously or subconsciously seized upon by men like Gatland, who is already agitating for the return of one of his disgraced favourites, Jones, Rassie Erasmus (who, let’s face it, is still Springboks coach without the title) and even Joe Schmidt, who had a chance to change the direction of the All Blacks but went with the inside man.

It’s why outsiders without high-profile patronage find it so hard to get a look in, even ones with devastatingly good domestic records.

Rennie should take comfort in one key point: he’s been there and while he hasn’t quite done that, he’s coached a big team in test rugby and, yep, you can’t coach in international rugby unless you’ve coached in international rugby.


But wait there's more!