Controversial call illustrates laws not fit for purpose

Another weekend, another round of controversial refereeing decisions.

Referee Karl Dickson has found himself in the spotlight before around his perceived lax approach to head contact.

On Sunday he took charge of the Gallagher Premiership clash between Leicester Tigers and Exeter, where his decision to issue a second yellow card to Chiefs winger Olly Woodburn in trying to stop Chris Ashton in the act of scoring caused headlines.

Ashton was racing into the right-hand corner while being tackled by Stuart Hogg, with Woodburn sliding in to add his weight to the equation to force both Hogg and Ashton towards the sideline, and/or try to get under the ball to force a goal line drop-out while preventing the try.

In this instance, Dickson has been absolutely spot on with the laws as they are written.

There are two possible laws that come into play when an act of preventing a try scoring opportunity is stopped like this.

Law 13.4 states that "players on their feet and without the ball must not fall on or over players who have the ball or who are near it".

The sanction is a penalty unless it is in the act of scoring a definite try.

In this case, Woodburn has gone to ground willingly to prevent the try from being scored. However, in his defence, he didn’t go in recklessly and he didn’t attempt to make a tackle. He slid along the ground with the tackle to attempt to play the ball.

We are always asking for consistency when it comes to these decisions.

I can’t recall every decision that has been given and there are obvious examples of times where there has been no penalty given for much more sanctionable offences, but Dickson has actually penalised players for going off their feet before while attempting to make the tackle.

Maybe it’s a law that