Ospreys winger Luke Morgan has publicly defended the incident that left Sharks back Ethan Hooker with a dislocated shoulder during the Welsh side's 21-17 URC victory in Swansea, insisting he acted within the laws of the game.
Hooker collected an offload from Vincent Tshituka and sprinted clear to score before half-time, narrowing the Ospreys' lead. As Hooker dived to ground the ball, Morgan landed on his back — contact that went unpunished by the officials but has since drawn widespread condemnation and is expected to end Hooker's URC season.
Responding to critics on Instagram, Morgan argued his intervention was legal on the basis that a try is not scored until the ball is grounded. "He clearly hasn't scored until the ball is grounded, therefore because the ball wasn't grounded means the ball is still in play and I am fully legal to make that tackle," he wrote, in a post he has since deleted.
That position has been challenged by a number of commentators. The prevailing legal counter-argument is that the absence of a grounded try does not render all contact lawful — late contact with no arms on a player who is airborne and in a vulnerable position constitutes foul play under World Rugby laws regardless of whether the try has been formally completed.
JP Pietersen made his frustration with the officials clear. "After scoring a try, the rules say you are not supposed to dive on a player, and rules are there to protect players and sadly that did not happen," he said. "He dislocated his shoulder. He is a massive presence for us and to lose him after the first half was very disappointing and frustrating." The Sharks have since made a formal request to the URC regarding the incident going unpunished on the field.
Morgan also pushed back at individual social media critics who used abusive language in his Instagram comments, though the broader legal question of whether the contact warranted a citing remains unresolved. No disciplinary proceedings have been confirmed.