Pivac: I’m reporting ref Poite to World Rugby
WALES head coach Wayne Pivac slammed the refereeing of Romain Poite after his team suffered a 24-13 defeat by England in the Autumn Nations Cup in Llanelli.
It was a seventh loss in nine games for Pivac. His team did score the first try through England-born centre Johnny Williams, but England were deserved winners as Henry Slade and Mako Vunipola grabbed tries and captain Owen Farrell kicked the rest.
Pivac felt his team were harshly penalised by French official Poite at the scrum.
He also believed his flyhalf Dan Biggar had been taken out in the air by man of the match and England flanker Sam Underhill in the build-up to Slade’s try.
Pivac plans to express his unhappiness to World Rugby.
“It was pretty clear for everyone to see that when England got the weight through the bind and won the engagement, every penalty went their way,” Pivac said.
“With the pictures the referee was seeing he felt they were the dominant scrum, but on the engagement both teams are supposed to be square and stable. That wasn’t the case.
“We’d have liked the scrums to be reset or them free-kicked for doing that.
“For me, it’s pretty simple. If a prop loses his footing and goes down then he’s caused the scrum to go down. That happened on a couple of occasions.
“Behind the scenes we review the performances of our players and in doing that we do pick up things we send through to World Rugby.
“We’ll certainly be doing that on this particular occasion because I wasn’t happy with the first try of England’s. Dan was clearly taken in the air. The TMO comes in and calls that, but he’s over-ruled by the man in the middle.
“We then asked for him to have a look before the conversion was taken but our captain was dismissed 20 metres away. That was disappointing.”
THIS match was more of a beast than a beauty. It was also not the avalanche of a victory predicted by some, but England booked their place in the final of the Autumn Nations Cup thanks to this hardworking two tries to one verdict over a transitional Wales side in Llanelli.
It enabled them to finish top of Pool A, and no one typified the strong-arm grafting required to swing the result England’s way more than Sam Underhill, with the openside flanker giving his side crucial momentum with a full range of bruising attributes.
Underhill has an unstoppable engine, and whether he was halting Welsh carriers in their tracks, making barrelling runs up the middle, smart linking, or getting the edge in the breakdown battle, he fully merited his man-of-thematch award.
The Bath flanker’s most telling intervention came early in the second-half, when, with Wales trying to punch their way out of the danger zone from a five metre lineout, he not only snared Taulupe Faletau but picked him up and – with the assistance of his ‘Kamikaze Kid’ accomplice, Tom Curry – hurled him back into the Welsh in-goal area.
It earned England the five metre scrum from which Mako Vunipola was eventually able to wrestle his way over for the try that, along with an Owen Farrell conversion and two further penalties, provided them with a solid enough platform to pull clear of a tenacious Welsh side.
However, the anticipated English steamrollering of a new-look Wales line-up never materialised, with the home side giving as good as they got in the physical clatter in the first-half.
Initially, it meant that Red Rose enterprise was limited to kicking the skin off the ball through George Ford, restored at fly-half, Farrell, back at insidecentre, and Ben Youngs, who if Dan Robson was to get any meaningful time at scrum-half before the Six Nations, should have come off well before the 76th minute.
Although the England scrum was soon imposing itself, with Wales penalised twice early on, a penalty miss by Farrell meant they had nothing to show for it.
Nor did things improve when the tactical kicking game backfired. With Youngs and Ford unable to rattle the Welsh back three of Josh Adams, Lee Halfpenny and the 19-year-old Louis Rees-Zammit, when England put boot to ball again Henry Slade’s grubber was charged down by Dan Biggar.
The Welsh fly-half is one of the international arena’s great opportunists, and when he won the race to the tramline to get to the ricochet first, he clipped it in-field where centre Johnny Williams led the chase.
Williams, who had scored for an England XV against the Barbarians last year in a non-cap match, beat Ford to the ball, and after toe-poking it into the in-goal area followed-up to touch down.
The try stood when referee Romain Poite ruled that Biggar had blocked the ball with his hand rather than knocked-on, and with Halfpenny adding the conversion Wales led 7-0.
It was a wake-up call which England responded to by abandoning their kicking game and, instead, going at Wales ball-in-hand.
It paid an immediate dividend with a flowing attack down both flanks before a midfield move which saw Underhill make a clean break into the Welsh 22 thanks to a crisp inside pass from Maro Itoje.
As the cover closed, the flanker passed to Kyle Sinckler, and the prop rumbled to within a couple of feet of the Welsh line before quick ball from the ruck saw Ford, Elliot Daly and Farrell combine to give Slade a clear run-in.
Farrell could not add the extras, and after the match the Wales coach, Wayne Pivac, complained that the try should not have been given. He said that in the passage of play that preceded it Biggar had been tackled in the air by Underhill, and that play had continued.
Video replays indicated that although it was a close call, Pivac was right. However, rather than it being a heinous refereeing error, it was one of those marginal ‘win-some-lose-some’ calls, with England the beneficiaries this time.
Soon afterwards Wales were unlucky not to increase their 7-5 lead when a long-range Halfpenny penalty shaved the upright, but it was England who had the better set-piece platform – and they used it to command territory and possession.
Another counter-attack saw Curry and Underhill link to send Ford on a threatening break, and despite the Welsh defence holding firm, with Jim Botham and Alun Wyn Jones prominent, England maintained the pressure.
It was rewarded when Farrell kicked a penalty on the half-hour to give England the lead for the first time at 8-7. The visitors then went to their set-piece to keep the heat on Wales, and with Samson Lee struggling against Mako Vunipola, and giving the wrong signals to the referee, the hosts conceded their fourth scrum penalty of the half.
When Farrell hit the target again it gave England an 11-7 half-time lead – and when they were penalised at a scrum again immediately after the interval Pivac sent on his bench tighthead, Tomas Francis, for Lee.
Then came the Mako Vunipola try, when he and Joe Launchbury did a heavyweight ballroomdance swivel to crash over from a ruck on the Welsh
line, and with Farrell converting England had an 18-7 lead with half an hour to play.
However, any sense that they had shaken-off Wales was soon quashed as they rallied, allowing Biggar to kick two penalties in quick succession to narrow the gap to 18-13 on the hour.
Eddie Jones responded by sending on Jack Willis for Curry, and when a Mako Vunipola rumble up the middle, and touchline forays by Watson and Willis knocked Wales into reverse again, Farrell kicked a further penalty to stretch the lead to 21-13.
The injection of three more fresh bench forwards
– Luke Cowan-Dickie, Jonny Hill, and Ellis Genge – brought an impact in the last 15 minutes which Wales could not match.
England closed-out the match when a Hill tackle on Rees-Zammit, and a Willis turnover penalty when the winger failed to release, saw Farrell do the honours from the tee again to give them their winning tally.
However, while England’s set-piece and defensive merits were again undeniable, whether they polished their attacking repertoire enough at Parc y Scarlets to dazzle the French in the Autumn Nations Cup final is another matter.