We’ve seen it before. Those colossal feats of strength from rugby players. A towering lock lifted above his head by a burly prop. Hanging in the air waiting for the kickoff.
But last Saturday something interesting happened.
Cobus Wiese soared under the forearms of Boan Venter, as the Boks took the restart from Embrose Papier’s early try against Scotland.
And Venter held him in the air, as Wiese bowed a bit backwards, almost looking as if he was going overboard. But Venter’s strength held him as his teammates held their breath.
Regaining his balance, Wiese surged forward, and Venter used the momentum to run with him. Two, three, perhaps four metres forward before launching him onto the ground with nobody in front of him for an excellent gallop upfield.
Wiese’s surge led to an offload to Paul de Villiers, which ultimately led to Evan Roos’s try.
It was a moment to savour, but a moment that also set the tongues wagging.
Wiese couldn’t be touched in the air, but was the movement forward illegal, and was Venter’s launch against the lawbook?
This debate launched for hours on social media. Many - predictably on the northern side of the hemisphere - believing it was wrong and should have been penalised.
Others thought the try was legal, and nothing was wrong.
We’ve asked around and there are varying opinions, so much so that we weren’t able to get a definitive answer from anyone.
So we leave it to you, dear reader/viewer, to decide. Have a look at the clip again and you decide whether it was an action that should be illegal, or whether it was a simple clever play in the moment by two players who used their strength and momentum to spark a beauty of a try?
Either way it stands in the record books. Either way Roos has a try behind his name.
But we’ll leave it up to you, with the footage to make the claim either way.