Seething England see red over ref

JUST over a week since Scotland came unstuck in the face of a Welsh scrum, England were sounding a familiar sour note as they went public in their complaints over their mauling at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday evening. In the wake of the Murrayfield defeat to the recently-crowned Six Nations champions, Scott Johnson and his men cried foul, with the targets ranging from their own forwards, to the referee, to the IRB and then, finally, to the Wales pack for their unsporting ways. Yesterday, following their 30-3 destruction in Cardiff at the weekend, England followed suit in airing their displeasure over how the game played out against the Welsh — with referee Steve Walsh firmly in their sights. Forwards coach Graham Rowntree argued his men, despite conceding a stream of penalities, were harshly treated, saying: ‘I sat up on Saturday night and watched the game again, forensically. ‘I’m annoyed at a lot of the outcomes and I will speak to the IRB to get clarification. ‘In most of the games, I’ve submitted glowing reports on referees but, on this occasion, we were frustrated by a lot of outcomes.’ Asked to explain the main issues he would be bringing to the governing body’s attention, Rowntree said: ‘Breakdown and scrum. A lot of those decisions were big, game-momentum-changing decisions.’ Rowntree later added: ‘I don’t buy this whole streetwise thing, we just want a clean outcome at the scrum.’ Tom Youngs, the Leicester hooker at the heart of England’s front row on Saturday, also questioned Walsh’s decision-making, insisting: ‘As a pack, we’ve hardly given any penalties away, then suddenly we were pinged off the park at the set-piece. It’s quite difficult to accept. It’s frustrating because you don’t count yourself as a cheating pack.’