Territorial Or Tactical

Laws of the Game: Rugby Union, 2011
Law 8.1(b)

Advantage can be either tactical or territorial

It is also provided that the game cannot end on the award of a penalty - the resulting penalty must be allowed to be taken.

And this matters why? Well because on Saturday at Twickenham, the perennially controversial (I think he rather likes it) Steve Walsh got it wrong, or less charitably simply bottled it. Watch the replay on iPlayer and at 80.14 elapsed time you will see an English maul totter towards the Welsh goal line. As that maul collapses Walsh utters the words 'collapsing the maul, red 3.' He then awaits the advantage. The passage of play ends with David Strettle adjudged not to have scored the try. Walsh blows for no side. Had England really enjoyed a sufficient tactical advantage in one failed attempt to cross the Welsh line? Was the matter of feet advanced beyond the position of the prospective penalty really a sufficient territorial gain? Was it bollocks. Charitably, he forgot. More realistically he bottled it. He is paid to get these things right.

If you really want to have some fun with this scenario, you can argue that 'red 3's' cynicism (that's the brilliant Adam Jones whose talent would have been more widely understood if he didn't have such daft hair) should have been rewarded with a yellow card. Net effect, penalty and England elect for the scrum free from the encumbrance of Wales's best scrummager. Best case scenario, England score try, convert and finish at 19-19. None of this actually  bothers me too much. Draws are unsatisfactory in rugby and Wales were the better side. But, like I say, Walsh is paid to get these things right. Oh well it's only a game, as I'm famous for never saying. Ray Prosser had an answer to such glibness - 'What the f*** do we have points for then?'