Schalk Burger and Victor Matfield have come out swinging at the officiating in the URC Final, taking particular aim at the TMO calls that denied Harold Vorster and Ruan Nortje tries in the second half. Matfield's view is that neither decision met the clear-and-obvious threshold required to overrule an on-field try, while Burger went further, accusing referee Piardi and TMO Liperini of fabricating a narrative on the Nortje try — arguing the Moodie pass went backwards off the hand, not forward. Both felt the away-fixture factor played a role.
That said, neither is hiding from the bigger picture. Burger was blunt: the Bulls were outclassed across every meaningful stat, and the officiating grievances are secondary to a tactical failure to pressure Sam Prendergast. His pointed comparison — that a Springbok side would have had Finn Russell on the deck eight times inside 20 minutes — frames the Bulls' passivity as the real story. If the piece interests you, it's worth reading for Burger's tactical breakdown of what the Bulls should have done differently, beyond the officiating noise.