Ironically I thought Johnson had done a great job of wrapping the ball up; without the foul from D-W I’m not sure Connor grounds the ball anyway.

Yep definite penalty try. Should have been a yellow card too.

There have been hundreds of clearer penalty try’s not given that were far more legit than that. The yellow I could ha e understood, a penalty I could have, but not a try in a million years how they have ruled for the last decade.

if the ruling is the same as union the guy committing the foul is classed as not being there
i dont think there is any doubt he helped the ball to not be grounded, without his help the ball would have been grounded so its a penalty try

Connor was in the process of being wrapped and rolled. Penalty, perhaps a yellow, but def not a penalty try as far as I'm concerned.

England will have to cut out the errors a bit next week I think; NZ have great strike. When their halves put something on it looks too easy to break the line at pace. Johnson might get some stick but he was there at the Connor penalty try wrapping him up and closest man to Gildart when he scored. We don’t have halves with the same all-round game yet IMO. We have grunt in the front and some skill in the backs but the link isn’t quite there.

I'm not so sure, in that split second he sees a set of knees heading for his grid it has to have some impact on connor muscling onto/over the line and he only missed it by fractions even with this obstacle in his way. I can certainly see both sides of the argument but imo Connor would have muscled forward were the body of the full back not there, therefore Try.

There haven’t been many, if any, incidents like that that I can remember where the full back slides in with his knees into the head of the attacker and helps to prevent a try being scored. There’s been lots of times where an attacker scoring a try has been slid into by a defender and nothing has been done, when it should have been an 8 point try, the Charnley try in this year’s Grand Final being a good example.

Talking simply, the defender made contact with the head of the attacker and the momentum of the attacker was affected by that action. Clear penalty try for me.

On paper that England team should have been walloped, so IMO they did really well to win. For all the criticism of Bennett, it shows that a strong defence has to come first, and in any event our halves are so poor I'm not sure how good they'd be if we tried to play expansively.

By a player tackling him round the neck...

I hope the Gildard try means we never have to watch Bateman play centre for England again

I think Gildard is one hell of a talent btw

So is Gildart

Agreed. Giltart has a lot to live up to now.

I fully agree. The fullback went in with the knees to the head as the player was attempting to ground the ball which is a clear foul, dangerous play and exactly the criteria for a penalty try. The same player had been penalised previously for niggling dirty play and was lucky to get away with a late head high attempt to prevent a try earlier. Should have been a yellow and possibly a red.

These aren't exactly the criteria at all. The ref has to be of the opinion that a try would have been scored had the foul not occurred. That said, the wording of the law differs from what I thought it was (my fault, made the mistake of listening to the commentators again). Time and again we're informed that the ref has to be certain a try would have been scored. He doesn't. My objection to the decision was based upon the premise that the VR could not have been certain Connor would have grounded it. Having read the law, he didn't need to be. Ref = right, me = wrong. Penalty try.