Wallaby coach lashes out at officials
ALL Blacks prop Owen Franks will not be cited for alleged gouging in New Zealand’s 29-9 victory over Australia on Saturday.
Wallabies coach Michael Cheika lashed out at Saturday’s match officiating in Wellington after his side were crushed for the second consecutive week and said he was “bitterly disappointed” in French referee Romain Poite.
Cheika had hoped action would be taken after video footage showed Franks’s hand move across the face of Kane Douglas in full view of Poite, who took no action.
“We saw it at the time,” Cheika fumed. “I’m sure the match review will pick that up. It was pretty open.”
But the Rugby Championship controlling body, Sanzaar, said there will be no citings from the match and All Blacks coach Steve Hansen believed the right decision was made.
“Social media, I think, were the people who alerted everyone to it and they certainly don’t get all the views,” Hansen said yesterday.
Cheika, who complained of a high penalty count against the Wallabies, said he had complained to world referees’ boss Alain Rolland “about the treatment to our captain and our players by Romain Poite”.
Apart from the Franks incident, Cheika was baffled why lock Adam Coleman was yellow-carded for a late charge on Ben Smith while All Blacks hooker Dane Coles was only penalised for a forearm blow to Scott Fardy’s head.
Australian news media reported that the Australian Rugby Union planned to lay a complaint with World Rugby that Hansen had breached the rules by having a private meeting with Poite before the Wellington Test.
But Hansen denied there was any meeting.
Hansen confirmed he did, however, have talks with assistant referee Jaco Peyper, at Peyper’s request, to discuss points in All Blacks’ play after the Sydney Test won by New Zealand 42-8 the previous week.
Although the Wallabies have been comprehensively beaten in both Tests, Cheika was reluctant to give too much praise to the All Blacks, who are rebuilding after several senior players retired from Test rugby after the World Cup final last year.
“At this stage there’s been the two games with us this year and they’ve beaten us by a handsome margin in both so against us, yes,” he said when asked if the All Blacks would dominate the championship.
Hansen, asked if Australia were not as good now as they were when beaten in the World Cup final last year, was reluctant to criticise.
“On the scoreboard it looks like we’ve done it pretty easy but I don’t think anyone would say it was easy,” he said. “The skill level of our guys was really good under extreme pressure at times. At the moment that’s where we’ve got a little bit of an edge.” — AFP