Despite costly error, Ticats’ Kent Austin still supports replay

It may have cost him a football game but Hamilton Tiger-Cats head coach Kent Austin still supports the use of replay.

The CFL acknowledged over the weekend that the replay official made a mistake when he ruled a pass incomplete during Hamilton’s 30-29 loss to the Ottawa Redblacks last Friday. Instead of turnover that would have given the Ticats the ball, the error allowed the Redblacks to kick a field goal for what would ultimately be the winning points.

Though clearly frustrated by the call – the loss has hurt the team’s chances at winning the East Division – Austin credited the league for acknowledging the mistake.

“There’s nothing wrong with replay. There might be some issues with the implementation of it and I think we’re all smart enough to figure that out and make it better,” he said. “We shouldn’t get rid of it.”

Austin is a member of the league’s competition committee and has been a strong supporter of expanding replay over the past couple of seasons.

“We should all have an attitude of how to make things better and understand that it’s not a perfect system but that we can constantly improve it,” he said. “That should be our focus.”