All Blacks identify scrum worries

Lock Luke Romano vows the All Blacks will be able to quickly adjust to the French referees’ policing of the scrum after some ‘‘frustrating’’ rulings in the Crusaders’ loss to the British and Irish Lions.

Referee Mathieu Raynal pinged the Crusaders in three first-half scrums on Saturday, leaving the Super Rugby leaders scratching their battle-scarred heads and the capacity AMI Stadium crowd incensed.

But Romano and front rowers Codie Taylor and Wyatt Crockett believe the All Blacks will be forewarned for the upcoming test series with French referees Jerome Garces and Raymond Poite set to referee the second and third tests.

Romano felt the Crusaders, who lost 12-3 to the Lions in a try-less contest, were ‘‘starting to get a bit of dominance at scrum time’’, but Raynal’s rulings differed to Super Rugby referees’ interpretations.

‘‘With Super Rugby refs, we’re allowed to lean and be pre-engaged and the ref tonight, he didn’t want that and that’s a northern hemisphere ref, and so we were finding it hard to adjust to that.

‘‘He’s the one with the whistle, and he’s the one who interprets the rules, so we needed to adjust a lot quicker.

Asked if it was frustrating, Romano said: ‘‘I guess it is, but that’s all part of the game... and we’ve probably let it sort of get to us a little bit’’.

‘‘We felt we had dominance there and we weren’t getting the calls. That’s just part of rugby. You’ve got to take it on your chin and get to your next task. It probably upset us a bit.’’

But Romano believes the All Blacks will now know what to expect.

‘‘Now that we’ve obviously played a game under that, we’ll know how they’re going to ref that gap - they don’t want the preengage - that’s something we can train over the next couple of weeks.you know, sort it out.’’

Taylor - likely to be Steve Hansen’s starting hooker if concussion rules Dane Coles out - said the All Blacks would have to make sure they were not ‘‘showing pictures’’ [telegraphing their scrummaging tactics] too early in the tests.

‘‘We pride ourselves on a big scrum and [the Lions] obviously ‘changed the picture’, which is really smart.’’

Taylor said it was ‘‘quite a close hit’’ in scrums these days and sometimes the Lions would ‘‘have a lean’’ and at other times they didn’t, with the Crusaders penalised for pre-engaging.

Crockett said the All Blacks would have to ‘‘take those [scrummaging] decisions out of the ref’s hands’’ by being clinical at the set piece.