World Cup retro 2007: The Mark Cueto try that wasn’t

England could conceivably be going into this year’s tournament looking for three wins in a row if it wasn’t for a controversial decision by a TMO in the 2007 World Cup final.

By Conor Heneghan

As World Cups go, the tournament in France four years ago must go down as arguably the worst of all the six competitions to date. And that’s not just sour grapes because Ireland failed so miserably to perform.

The quality of rugby on offer was, for the most part, turgid stuff. The majority of teams spent the majority of the time launching garryowens into opposition territory and looking to use forward and set-piece supremacy as a means to achieve success.

Rather like Italia ’90 in soccer, it was the paucity of quality attacking rugby that prompted the powers to be to change the rules to make the sport into the far more attractive version we have today.

It should have come as no surprise then, that the two teams in the final in France were the two sides that were best at battering their opponents into submission. It should also have come as no surprise that there were no tries in an anti-climactic final that rather summed up the tournament as a whole.

There were no tries, but there should have been one, and it is a shame that the one piece of creative and attractive rugby in the final went unrewarded thanks to a poor judgement call by television match official Stuart Dickinson.

With England trailing 9-3 just after the second half got underway, blonde bombshell Matthew Tait made a magnificent break from the centre of the pitch and went agonisingly close to going all the way only to be held up just short of the line as the Springboks defended desperately and, true to form, illegally.

Andy Gomarsall recycled to Johnny Wilkinson, who, under pressure, flicked the ball onto the waiting Mark Cueto on the left wing. Cueto dived for the line, marginally evading a despairing dive from South Africa number eight Danie Roussouw, and seemed certain he had touched down before his trailing left leg went into touch.

Before he even had a chance to examine all the angles, partisan commentator Stuart Barnes said ‘TRY’, but he was soon proved correct, as it was clearly evident that Cueto’s left leg was above the line as he touched the ball down.

Dickinson ruled otherwise, however, and England had to be content with a Wilkinson penalty to reduce the gap to 9-6, but they wouldn’t score for the rest of the match and the Seth Efrikans went on to win quite comfortably in the end.

Had the try been awarded, England would probably have gone 10-9 ahead given the machine-like efficiency with which Wilkinson was kicking his goals and could conceivably have gone on to win the game and their second successive World Cup.

Could you imagine the over-the-top reaction that would have elicited across the pond? England winning the thing once was bad, but two in a row would have been hard to take. And could you imagine the arrogance with which they would be carrying themselves into the tournament next week, being the only team to have ever annexed two World Cups in a row?

Maybe we should thank Stuart Dickinson after all.

Anyway, here's the moment in all its anti-climactic glory.