Dubai: Scotland’s players thought they had beaten England in the cup quarter-final until their ignorance to a recent rule change left them red in the face.
The Scots were leading their rivals 21-19 with seconds left and so kicked the ball out and began celebrating. However, a recent rule change means a player now has to tap the ball on before kicking out and so the referee Jordan Way called for a line-out to England from which they managed a match winning try to win 24-21.
Scotland stand-off Gavin Lowe said: “At the end of the game the boys were excited, everyone thought we’d won the game but obviously this new rule change was brought in at the start of the season.
“Everything just happened so quickly because we were so excited and we just kicked the ball out, then the referee blew for a line-out to England. Because of our own errors we struggled to close the game out and we are pretty disappointed with ourselves, but we have to get our heads up and continue for the rest of the series.
“The new rule change states the ball must be tapped before being kicked into touch or else a line-out will be played. It’s for the advantage of teams trying to get back in the game where there’s one score in it, they can now kick it to the corner so they have time to play the line-out and get back into the game.
“The referee had met with the coaches this week and discussed this and our coach [Calum MacRae] has taken it on his own to say he obviously didn’t make us aware of it beforehand.”
