CrapRefs.com

Last week it was Stu Dickinson and his touch judges, this week it was Keith Brown and his.

The Crusaders were the injured party last week and it was the Lions who got the worst of it this week (although there was an early bad call that cost the Hurricanes 3 points).

It’s the calls that swing a game that we don’t want to see and unfortunately that’s what we got at the Cake Tin in Wellington.

Brown missed a blatant forward pass by Ma’a Nonu and instead of a scrum to the Lions, the Hurricanes were awarded and kicked a penalty to reduce the deficit to 2 points and gain second half momentum after being 5 points behind at the break.

It gave the Hurricanes impetus at the critical period just after half time. They scored 17 points from tries to Nonu and Hosea Gear and a penalty to Cruden.

Another tough call came when a Lions defender was penalized 5 out from his own line for an illegal steal but it looked very similar to the match-turning call by Stu Dickinson last week when Richie McCaw was penalized and the Reds won the game with the penalty.

Tue bad calls gave the home side an unfair boost that they did not deserve bit took full advantage of.

The Lions finished strongly scoring 2 tries in the last 10 minutes but it was too little too late.

It would be a stretch to say that the Hurricanes were looking like they would have scored that many points in the post half time period without the help they got from Keith Brown.

Tags: Keith Brown
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