Cheika defends Aussie scrumming technique

AUSTRALIA coach Michael Cheika has fired back at Eddie Jones by insisting it is England rather than Australia who scrum illegally.

England boss Jones riled his native Australia by calling for a pre-match meeting with referee Jaco Peper ahead of Saturday’s clash at Twickenham to discuss his concerns about the Wallabies’ scrum.

But Cheika said Jones, once his teammate at Sydney club Randwick, had to get his own house in order after prop Dan Cole was sin-binned for collapsing a scrum during England’s 27-14 win at home to Argentina last Saturday.

“I think the important thing there to note is that he’s got to be looking at his own players because they’re the ones who have a prop with a yellow card and that same prop’s been infringing the law since his career started,” Cheika said yesterday.

Cheika, in a thinly veiled reference to Cole’s play during England’s 3-0 series win in Australia in June, added: “It’s up to the ref whether he gets influenced by that really after the guy’s been boring in and falling down all of June in the series we played against them.”

The Australia coach stressed his side scrummed correctly. “We scrum square,” he said. Cheika added that Australia props Scott Sio and James Slipper had been undone at the scrum by Cole not because of any technical deficiencies of their own, but rather as a result of the England front-row’s illegal tactics.

It is standard practice before an international for coaches to meet with a referee in order to get some idea of how a particular official will interpret rugby union’s complex rulebook.

Cheika questioned whether the practice of meeting with a referee in the lead-up to a Test match should continue.

England head into Saturday’s match on a 13-game unbeaten run, having won all 12 of their internationals under Jones since the coach took charge following last year’s World Cup.

Australia, meanwhile, will be looking to recover from a 27-24 loss to Ireland in Dublin last Saturday that ended their hopes of emulating the 1984 Wallabies by completing a Grand Slam of wins over the Home Nations. — AFP