{"id":839251,"date":"2026-03-20T21:24:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T21:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/839251\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T21:24:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T21:24:14","slug":"nigel-owens-weighs-in-on-controversial-final-france-penalty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/839251\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigel Owens weighs in on controversial final France penalty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ex-Test referee Nigel Owens believes the decision to award France a penalty in the final stage of their Six Nations meeting with England was the correct decision, but wishes they had shown the exact offence to avoid any confusion.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Referee Nika Amashukeli awarded France a penalty for a high tackle from England prop Trevor Davison on fellow replacement Joshua Brennan, but it was subsequently met with confusion from various channels, with it being awarded a couple of phases after the incident.<\/p>\n

Even the players were left muddled as well, with England captain Maro Itoje later tussling with a couple of France<\/a> players in the immediate aftermath, but it was eventually seen to be awarded for the aforementioned tackle.<\/p>\n

\u2018We do have a penalty, there\u2019s no doubt about that\u2019<\/p>\n

Speaking on\u00a0Whistle Watch<\/a>, Owens offered some clarity on the initial decision, insisting it was the correct call to ping Davison for the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe penalty is correct, that\u2019s the first thing. We do have a penalty, there\u2019s no doubt about that.<\/p>\n

State of the Nation: Gregor Townsend critics forced to \u2018eat humble pie\u2019 despite Scotland\u2019s \u2018archetypical\u2019 campaign<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBut, I was watching the game and going \u2018that\u2019s a big call to decide a game. I can\u2019t see what\u2019s wrong with it\u2019. The TMO was sweeping and then comes in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outcome is totally correct. Fair play to the officials, it\u2019s a big call but they\u2019ve done the correct one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

However, Owens<\/a> also aired his belief that the referee should have asked to see the tackle on the big screen, just to ease any confusion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had difficulty this year in the broadcaster actually seeing the footage. We\u2019ve had a couple of discussions where we\u2019ve said \u2018why didn\u2019t they show that footage on the day\u2019 or \u2018where was that footage\u2019. If that was me, I would have said, \u2018show me the head contact, please\u2019, so everybody knows their 100% correct. They were correct, but people watching were going \u2018where\u2019s the penalty?\u2019.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou have a duty to make the right decision, that\u2019s the first thing, but it does help with an explanation. And for the players as well, there were probably some players on the pitch going \u2018what was that for\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have liked to see the footage, it ticks all the boxes (then). The penalty is correct, there is no doubt about that and well done on the officials and the TMO for picking it up. They got the right decision, and that\u2019s the important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: <\/strong>Nigel Owens reveals crucial error in Six Nations finale as TMO went \u2018outside of protocol\u2019 for key France score<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ex-Test referee Nigel Owens believes the decision to award France a penalty in the final stage of their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":839252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[393,2000,299,36,225,90462,12,17421,4209],"class_list":{"0":"post-839251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-england","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-france","12":"tag-home-page","13":"tag-internationals","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-nigel-owens","16":"tag-six-nations"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}