It was a heartbreaking loss for St. Mary’s. After leading at halftime and battling their way back from a deficit, the Gaels didn’t quite have enough time to overhaul BYU Saturday.

The Cougars won 32-28, reversing the result between the two in Moraga a year ago. But St. Mary’s Head Coach Tim O’Brien had the game in perspective.

“I think if you look back on the game a year ago, BYU might have felt, boy, we let that slip away. This game, I think they know they were in a really tough game. I feel like we played better this time around.”

They didn’t play better in the opening ten minutes of each half. The St. Mary’s philosophy is, in part, about attacking from anywhere. But that doesn’t mean attacking in any situation, and several times the Gaels threw away promising attacking positions because they made one too many offloads, one too many players to keep the ball alive when a ruck and recycle would have sufficed. The Cougars pounced gleefully in the opening minutes of the game, and again in the opening minutes of the second half, scoring 25 of their 32 points in the opening of the halves, and doing so with deadly accuracy.

“We made some major tactical blunders,” said O’Brien. “And BYU came out with some extra pop, which we didn’t hand too well.”

But still the Gaels never, ever backed down, and led 18-10 at halftime and finished the game camped out on the BYU line. They handled injuries that forced Vili Helu up to lock, where he performed admirably, and Dylan Audsley’s goalkicking was astounding (as was Jonny Linehan’s for BYU).

So it came down to the end of the game, and some serious questions as to whether it ended as it should. 

BYU played very well, and scored several excellent tries to lead 32-21 with about ten or more minutes to go. The final ten minutes were crucial. During those next ten minutes, St. Mary’s were on the attack almost the entire time. During that time, BYU committed a long series of penalties - offside at least five times, plus consistently not rolling away. There were some infractions not penalized, including a mild off-the-ball incident (or so it looked on video) where it seems as if St. Mary’s could have been the ones penalized there.

This is not to criticize BYU. The Cougars players were desperately trying to save the game, and, as good defenders do, doing everything they could to do the job until they got penalized. The thing was, they weren’t penalized as much as they could be, and referee George O’Neil, despite a series of offside penalties on the tryline (including one where the Cougars jumped offside on a tap penalty), did not go to his pocket.

Despite this, St. Mary’s did score a try - only all of the officials were unsighted, and Vili Helu’s try, clear on the video, was not given. (The call appears to have been a knock-on against St. Mary’s, which isn’t apparent on video). The non-try was made with at least four minutes left. Had the Gaels been given credit for that try, they had a chance to score again to win the game.

Two minutes later, BYU finally got a yellow card, oddly, it was for a marginal offside call - others had been far more obvious. The Gaels kicked to the corner, and then, after a maul and a ruck, scored. They expected there to be more time, as there had been stoppages (including for checking the try not given, and the giving of the yellow card, combined they wasted about a minute), but referee O’Neil called full time.

Now, this seems strange, because no one seemed to be expecting full time as Dylan Audsley kicked the final conversion. In addition, the time on the video of the game shows the second half lasting exactly 40 minutes - what game has zero time added for stoppages?. And finally, referee O’Neil, at least in the last two significant stoppages of the game, never raised his hand to indicate a stoppage of the clock, something you do when you give a card, or consult with the assistant referees.

If there had been two or three minutes added, would St. Mary’s have won? That’s still not likely, but it’s possible. 

This is not to vilify referee O’Neil, who had a huge job in front of him refereeing two teams that love to push the limits. But in close games between top teams - this game with #1 in the country at stake - little details like the time, proper positioning for all officials when there’s a ruck on the tryline, when you give yellow cards, and policing off-the-ball stuff, all matter.

On such debates and questions championship hinge.