Warren Gatland made a surprise appearance at Wales’ Monday press conference as he addressed a number of issues surrounding the controversial win over Georgia. He flatly denied manipulating any laws and also had a rather tense exchange with a New Zealand j

WHAT ARE YOUR REFLECTIONS ON THE GAME? I am really pleased, pleased that we exposed a group of young guys in the way that the game went; there were a couple of opportunities in terms of tries and the game could have been reasonably comfortable, we could have taken a couple of penalty kicks at goal, but they put themselves under pressure by trying to play rugby and then we have had to dig deep in a set-piece arm wrestle.

The guys have learnt a lot and I’m happy they have had to come out and fight and dig deep in those circumstances to grind out a tough victory. I am pleased from that aspect in the experience those players would have had. WHAT HAVE YOU MADE OF COMMENTS FROM FORMER PLAYERS ABOUT THE FINAL MINUTES? I haven’t seen any comments from former players.

All I can say from those final minutes is that when Tom Francis was yellowcarded, from the box we said Leon is to go back on and the message came back saying he can’t go back on he has been cramping up.

You can see why we made the change during the game, you can see clearly the number of occasions him stretching and cramping.

It was not an injury replacement because we were hoping if he was cramping and had time to recover, he would be able to get out of that. But they said he hadn’t recovered from that.

Nicky Smith wasn’t an option at tight-head because it is not a position he plays, so we potentially we were down to uncontested scrums, but we didn’t go to uncontested scrums because they kicked for the corner so we wouldn’t have had to make a replacement, we could have left Seb (Davies) on as line-out forward.

I can assure you, from my point of view as an ex-front row player, the last we would want to do is try and manipulate the laws.

If Leon was fit and had to go back on, then so be it. We would have dug deep and tried to play out in that scenario.

The message from us was put Leon back on, it came back to us, his calves aren’t right, he had tightened up, he has been stretching the whole time, as we saw during the game, so with two tight-heads unavailable we thought we were going to uncontested scrums. DO YOU THINK THE CIRCUMSTANCES WERE VERY DIFFERENT TO PARIS BACK IN MARCH? It was quite different in that they had a player on the field and he came off injured with another player warming up.

It wasn’t as if we were making a replacement in that situation. I think it was significantly different and I thought there was quite a lot of video evidence to say the player was injured.

There was evidence before Leon came off that he was injured; he was being treated, his calves were tight and he was on the sidelines trying to recover. It wasn’t us trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, I think the France one is possibly different in that regard. WHAT IS THE INJURY SITUATION? Liam Williams was limping and it was a bit of an abdominal thing. We’re just going to wait for the next 48 hours.

A lot of the forwards are pretty good and we’ve got a couple of backs banged up from the weekend. We’re assessing them to see how they come through before tomorrow morning. IS JUSTIN TIPURIC AVAILABLE? He’s back in training. WHAT ABOUT SAMSON LEE? He’s still struggling. I would doubt he will be involved given how late it is in the campaign and he hasn’t done anything on his feet with his Achilles.

He’s been doing a lot of boxing and cycling, but not even so much of that lately. We haven’t even had him on the field and the first time we put him in boots he was sore. I’m not sure what the issue is there.

It’s his Achilles and you’d have to talk to the medics. He’s felt good in his runners and when he’s put boots on he’s felt discomfort. We’re continuing to manage and treat that to see if we can get some improvement.

Sometimes it’s just scar tissue which needs to be broken up, that’s the position he’s in at the moment and we want to get him back on the field training. But at this stage we want to make sure we don’t push him too hard, rush him or break him. We don’t want to do that. HOW HAVE YOU ASSESSED THE ALL BLACKS SINCE THE LIONS TOUR? They were pretty good against France and they’ve had a lot of games this season.

They’ve had some extra players out to play the French 15 and at the moment they’re probably missing five or six of their first-choice XV and they’ve got three or four of their tight five out. They’ll be disappointed with the game against Scotland.

I thought Scotland took it to them, but saying that they still won the game and they had that X Factor when they needed to turn it on, they did that. In fairness to Scotland they kept going. In the past they may well have capitulated when they went behind and conceded three or four soft tries, but they didn’t do that and kept playing. I was impressed with the way Scotland played. ARE THEY ‘VULNERABLE’ AS A FORMER WELSH CAPTAIN (GWYN JONES) PUT IT ON THE WEEKEND? I think if you utter those words it comes back to bite you. I’ve never seen an All Blacks team that’s been vulnerable.

The quality and depth they have they would be hurting and disappointed they didn’t play better. Saying that, they coped with the pressure and won the game and that’s what it’s all about.

The All Blacks have made comments themselves they have dominated the game for too long - and people want to see the All Blacks come under pressure and teams pushing them close. We’ve seen that in the last few weeks with Australia beating them in Brisbane, and South Africa and Scotland pushing them close. I think that’s good for rugby. We want to see those close contests where teams that perform on the day are able to push the number one team in the world really closely. BACK HOME THERE IS A FAIR BIT OF INTEREST IN YOUR BOOK, PARTICULARLY YOUR STATEMENT THAT YOU KNOW SOME ‘EXPLOSIVE’ THINGS ABOUT THE ALL BLACKS? Are those the words I said? Read the quote out, I won’t comment on your rephrasing. CAN YOU CLARIFY WHAT YOU MEANT BY THAT, THE QUOTE IN THE BACK? In what way? YOU SAID YOU KNEW SOME EXPLOSIVE THINGS? Explosive is a pretty exaggerated word. I said I’d known things about the All Blacks and how personal some of the attacks on me were that if it needed to