Live

OTB Gold

06:00 PM-07:00 PM

OTB Gold
Advertisement
Rugby

Ireland team unhappy with referee after New Zealand loss

New Zealand's 21-9 win in Dublin on Saturday evening was not without incident. The World Champion...



Ireland team unhappy with refe...
Rugby

Ireland team unhappy with referee after New Zealand loss

New Zealand's 21-9 win in Dublin on Saturday evening was not without incident.

The World Champions scored three tries in the win, with two of those having questions raised over their validity. Beauden Barrett scored the second try of the game, after grounding the ball under pressure from Johnny Sexton. There were also hints of a forward pass in the buildup to Malakai Fekitoa's match-clinching try in the final ten minutes.

Despite the encouraging performance from Ireland, both head coach Joe Schmidt and captain Rory Best were disappointed with certain parts of referee Jaco Peyper's performance. Best's last act of the match before being substituted was to ask the referee to go to the TMO after Fekitoa's second try.

Schmidt would not be drawn into the performance of the South African, but was visibly not impressed by what happened on the field, in regards the scores and injuries to key players such as Robbie Henshaw, CJ Stander and Johnny Sexton.

"I don't assess the referees. They have an assessor... We will feed our feedback through the appropriate channels. They will send out edicts and we will try and keep the game safe and make it enjoyable."

Best, joined Schmidt in not directly chastising Peyper, but he was annoyed by parts of the South African's performance, especially after the final try.

"I just went up to him to ask him to have a look at it. He says he cannot go to a captain's call, which is fair... I tried to explain there was a lot a stake not to look at it... It was a one-score game at the time."

Schmidt also confirmed that week's team to face Australia could be depleted. Stander, Henshaw and Rob Kearney are to undergo Head Injury Assessments, while Sexton had a hamstring injury.

The head coach admitted that the extent of some of the injuries will not be fully known until Sunday or Monday.

Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!

Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.


Read more about

Rugby