Legendary rugby referee Nigel Owens has addressed why England’s Tom Curry was sent off while South Africa star Jesse Kriel wasn’t sent off against Scotland for similar offences.

Curry is serving a two-match ban but Kriel’s participation in the tournament has not been hampered in the same way.

“It all comes down to something as simple as this,” Owens said. “If you [the referee] felt that Tom Curry was reckless and he could have done something to avoid what happened, then we don’t have any mitigation, and we have a red card.

“When the game is going ahead, the TMO will be looking at everything in the background. Just remember they have the Hawke-Eye system which has all the different angles, all the different views to look at instances in the game.

“The TMO is looking at this and will then decide if he needs to bring something to the referee to then put it up on the screen and officially look at it, or he feels ‘I can’t see anything wrong here’, so we won’t be showing the referee because there’s nothing to show and then we carry on with the game.”