EVEN REF AGREED THEY TARGETED MURRAY!

OUR discipline has been a hugely disappointing element of the tour. The number of penalties we have conceded has been our most significant problem; not territory, possession, scrums, line-outs, the breakdown or anything else. Penalties have been the biggest momentum shifters in almost every game.

But it wasn’t a typical All Blacks performance in terms of throwing the ball around and being expansive. It was effective and they were physical.

It was clear that the All Blacks had pinpointed Conor Murray’s box-kicking as a strength. When I reviewed the incident where Jerome Kaino dives in on his leg it didn’t look like he was trying to make a tackle or diving to block the ball. He hit Conor’s standing leg after the ball had gone.

In other plays involving our scrum-half, Aaron Smith and Owen Franks were penalised for coming through before he cleared the ball, Brodie Retallick pushed him over twice after Conor got his kick away, and twice they came through and hit Conor after he passed. I felt he was being targeted.

So I sent an email to Alain Rolland (World Rugby referees’ chief), with ‘targeting our 9’ as a theme.

Alain replied to say they’d already had a workshop that day concerning a number of issues, and would send my email and the clips on to referee Jaco Peyper.

Peyper emailed back and agreed that Conor had been targeted. All this was pretty unusual, because you don’t ever get a response from the post-match referee’s analysis along the lines of ‘Yes. Yes. Agree’.