Gatland would never have whinged like Pivac
At last the England team have given their fans something to shout about, at least for one half of the game with an impressive starting 40 minutes last Sunday against Ireland.
For the first time since that great game against New Zealand, the team put in a performance of which they can justifiably be proud.
It wasn’t by any standards a perfect match with many mistakes and some petulant behaviour that could easily have ended in a card of any colour, but fortunately referee Jaco Peyper is an obvious homer so wouldn’t have done anything to upset the majority of the near 82,000 crowd.
What impressed me was the impact new attack coach Simon Amor has already made on the team with a number of new moves to counter the rush defence and some intelligent kicking that created two of England’s tries.
Amor’s Sevens influence also showed itself with the back-line players not appearing to have fixed positions, allowing Jonathan Joseph, Manu Tuilagi, Jonny May and Elliot Daly to interchange positions seemingly at will.
It was also the first game where Eddie Jones didn’t make negative comments about the opposition. That may or may not have contributed to Ireland’s slow start but it certainly seemed a coincidence, which hopefully Jones will learn from.
After this positive result England have got to find the consistency to play for 80 minutes as nothing else will do against Wales next week.
Meanwhile, it’s Wales who have taken over the mantle as the biggest whingers in the game with constant attempts to excuse their losses as being the fault of the referees Romain Poite and Matt Carley.
What is unforgivable is that World Rugby seem to have given tacit support to the Welsh claim that referee Romain Poite got it wrong in the game against Ireland.
Wales tried to blame Tadhg Furlong for cheating at the scrum, when anyone who understands anything about front row play knows they are wrong.
If the tight head bores in, the loose head moves outwards away from his hooker, but if you watch the video the Welsh loosehead is actually turned inwards towards Furlong which indicates he was the prop who was illegally changing the angle and driving into Furlong rather than straight.
Then this week we get Wyn Jones calling the French cheats at the scrum and adding, “We just keep evolving our scrum. That’s the kind of scrum we want, we want to be positive, a ‘no cheating’ mentality.”
Fact is, the Welsh scrum is no more legal or illegal than any other nation, including the French or Irish.
Each country have their own interpretation as to the ‘correct’ way to scrummage but the truth is the only way that counts is the way the match day referee wants, and you as a player have to adapt to his view of the scrum.
Any player worth his salt at international level will push the boundaries of what the referee will allow and cannot moan if or when they get it wrong.
In 1990 in Scotland for the Grand Slam decider, we elected for a series of scrums after the referee David Bishop had taken advice from touch judge Les Peard that David Sole had dropped the first scrum close to their try line. Bishop told David if it went down again it would be a penalty try.
We reset the scrum three times, each time Sole went down, and every time Bishop said, “I told you if you do it again, it will be a penalty try, only to then award a penalty.”
At the next scrum the Scots got a nudge and kicked the ball out of the scrum clearing their line and held on to win the match.
Did we blame the referee ? No, it was our fault. We got it wrong by keep trying for the penalty try instead of looking for other options.
One thing I hate about the game now is the number of players who cross-examine the referee at every decision or breakdown in an attempt to get a penalty.
When I played only the captain was allowed to approach the referee and ask for an explanation. If any other player questioned his decision you were marched ten yards down the field.
Watching the game you saw more and more Welsh players berating Matt Carley at almost every decision he made whether against them or not.
Meanwhile the scrum was a mess, as both sides attempted to drive across the face of the opposition, attempting to blame each other for the wheel. Wales certainly have no reason to complain about a referee that awarded them a try that was never scored as Dan Biggar failed to ground the ball with a French arm clearly seen underneath it.
Meanwhile, Carley had sin-binned two French players giving Wales the advantage of an extra player for a quarter of the game.
Wayne Pivac has done something that Gatland would never have done, seek to blame the referee for his own mistakes.
The two-player advantage should have been sufficient for Wales to claw back the French lead. The fact they didn’t shows Wales (like England) still have some way to go.
“The Welsh scrum is no more legal or illegal than any other, including the French or Irish”