Hurricanes skipper Ardie Savea is convinced he scored a late try for his team in their narrow Super Rugby Pacific quarter-final defeat against the Brumbies in Canberra on Saturday.
The back-row star believes he got it over the try-line before Brumbies replacement loose forward Luke Reimer got his hand under the ball as the home side held on for a 37-33 victory.
The incident occurred in the 84th minute of the match and referee Nic Berry checked with his TMO, who ruled that Savea was held up over the line by Reimer as there was no clear angle showing the ball being grounded.
Adamant he scored
But an emotional Savea was adamant that he scored the try when speaking to Stan Sport TV immediately after the match.
“I scored it, brother,” he said. “Initially I scored it and then he held me up. But hey, it is what it is.
“I’m gutted, but honestly, brother, I’m just really grateful and blessed bro to be here… it came down to that last play and as much as I disagree, that’s just the way footy goes.”
His brother Julian, who is currently sidelined through injury, agreed and tweeted “That was a try” while Hurricanes head coach Jason Holland was also convinced the ball was dotted down beyond the try-line.
“It’s pretty obvious the view. It’s been talked around,” Holland told reporters in the post-match press conference.
“I look back to qualifying 4 v 5, try and control the things we can control. Part of the battle coming to Canberra is the 50/50 calls don’t go your way here so that’s part of it.
“I thought we created so many opportunities and the Brumbies are really strong around that D (defence) and sometimes it takes six minutes to wear down a team like the Brumbies and score a try and I thought we’d done that.”
Meanwhile, Reimer finished the match as the Brumbies‘ hero and was delighted to be on the winning side.
“(I got) left hand under, strong side,” Reimer said after the game.
“It was disappointing last year and we’ve built on that. We can’t let ourselves into that position in the first place. We just had to get that ball back in the last nine minutes and we didn’t want another repeat.”
It’s the second time in a year that Reimer was involved in a crucial moment late in a Super Rugby Pacific play-off match.
In last year’s semi-final against the Blues in Auckland, it looked like he secured a late breakdown penalty for the Brumbies but it wasn’t called.
“From the box, we’re just screaming ‘hold up tackle’… we’ve been practising that all year and had pretty good pay. We were hoping someone would get underneath them and hold the ball,” said Brumbies head coach Stephen Larkham.
“Our hearts were going a million miles a hour. You could see the emotion in the box at the end of the game with the raging on the glass and the fists raised in the air.
“The boys were pretty confident after the game Lukey had has hand under it and obviously the TMO had no other decision with the angles he was looking it. There is no clear and obvious grounding off the ball.”
Special praise for Reimer
Brumbies full-back Tom Wright singled Reimer out for special praise after the match.
“It’s a 15 man effort at the end but it just takes one guy to get his hand under the ball to do something special,” Wright said.
“He gets unrewarded on the TV with a lot of highlights but he’s our go-to finisher and he did it again.”
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