Gatland calls for refs to put a block on NZ tactics

WARREN Gatland has called on officials to clamp down on the blocking the Lions have encountered on tour in New Zealand.

Gatland has highlighted the amount of holding off the ball his players have faced and revealed they have put together a package of video clips of incidents.

He will be meeting first Test referee Jaco Peyper on Friday and will no doubt be reinforcing the point ahead of the Eden Park showdown with the All Blacks.

Peyper handled Saturday’s game against the Maori, which the Lions won 32-10, and Gatland was encouraged by the way the South African dealt with any blocking incidents.

But it is an area that the Lions have had issues with on this tour.

“The frustrating thing for us is the amount of blocking that’s going on,” he said.

“It makes it difficult to complete attacking opportunities and situations because there is so much happening off the ball in terms of holding players or subtly holding players. We’ve raised it with the ref already.

“I don’t think it happens to the same extent in the northern hemisphere, but I know how difficult it is to pick up for referees because it tends to happen away from the ball. Someone just changes the line and blocks.

“We clipped a lot of the situations. We have just got to be aware of it.

“For us it’s being smart and hopefully the officials are aware of it.

“They were aware of it in the Maori game because they spoke about it a lot and they picked it up on a couple of occasions where we ended up with penalties and then a couple of other occasions they spoke about watching certain situations in terms of off the ball stuff.

“I am happy enough that if the referees are aware of it and they pick up teams for that, that would be good.

“If you look back at the very first kick-off in Chicago of the Ireland-All Blacks, the All Blacks were penalised for interference and blocking and stuff.

“All I am asking is the officials are aware of it and look at it and they did that last night so I was happy with it.”