Nigel Owens explains why Fiji's Levani Botia wasn't red-carded

Nigel Owens has given his verdict on the yellow card shown last Sunday night to Fiji back-rower Levani Botia and explained why it ultimately wasn’t deemed to be a red card offence by the TMO bunker.

The score was tied at 10 points all 10 minutes into the second half in Toulouse when Botia made head-to-head contact with the ball-carrying Portuguese winger Rodrigo Marta.

Referee Luke Pearce sin-binned Botia and signalled that a foul play review would take place after the match restarted with a penalty.

In the end, Botia’s offence wasn’t seen as something that merited a red card and he returned to the field of play to see out the remainder of a match that Fiji lost 24-23 but still qualified for next Sunday’s quarter-final versus England in Marseille.

If Botia was red-carded, he potentially faced a suspension that would have ruled him out of facing the English. Instead, he is available for selection and Owens explained why in the latest episode of the Whistle Watch programme that he presents.

“Fiji-Portugal, some of you are asking why this wasn’t a red card. Well, what we have first of all is does it reach the threshold of a yellow card to be sent to the bunker? Yes, it certainly does. It’s foul play, we have had head contact neck area, so it goes to the bunker to be reviewed.

“The bunker now will look at if there are any mitigating factors here that I don’t give a red card for. And yes there is. What we have is a slight step by the Portugal player which then causes the contact to be where it is.

“So a good review by the bunker mitigated down from a red to a yellow because of the mitigating factor of that step by the player which then contributes to where the collision took place. And that’s what we want from the bunker, good accurate decisions.”

Owens also referenced the spider cam, the camera that overhangs the pitch that was hit by the ball during the final round of matches at the World Cup. “It happened in a couple of games over the weekend; it’s also happened to me in the past as well,” he said.

“It happened to me out in Australia-England in Sydney in 2016. I played on. I was wrong and this is why. When we have the ball touching something that is not within the field of play, touches something that is not usually there, for example the spider cam, this is what applies:

“The team last in possession, the team kicking were last in possession of the ball because the opposition haven’t gained possession of it yet, so the put-in will be to them.

"The place will be actually where it hit the spider cam, a scrum down just below that because we can’t take into account where the ball may have gone next or what would have happened next.

“So quite rightly so, scrum down, scrum underneath where the ball comes off the spider cam and the team last in possession. So let’s hope the spider cam gets a bit higher from now on.”