Blues chief launches a defence of under-fire Umaga

May very well be his last high-profile management gig.

None of this is on either player. I don’t for a second think that Morgan is a dirty player or that Tizzano is a chancer who would be that cynical as to milk it.

It’s a failure of officiating. Collectively. Head contact is a penalty. He even states on his mic there is head contact!

Piardi goes straight to the TMO and says both players have arrived at the same time. They haven’t. If he asks the wrong questions he’ll always get the wrong answer.

Almost 75% of concussions take place around tackle areas. Every player at every level of the sport deserves to have their safety protected by officiating of a decent standard.

Once the tackle is completed and Ryan goes to ground (and illegally fails to release the ball) Tizzano has retreated to be first player through the gate.

I agree the HIA is a bad look for the Wallabies. I’m not trying to excuse that. If his mouthguard registered what was said to be double the force of a ‘standard’ impact then it should be an obligatory HIA. No excuses.

I obviously don’t agree Tizzano commits a tech offence but Ryan’s offence is first. In fact, it’s arguable that Itoje blocks Wilson just before Ryan receives he pass from the previous ruck…

The tackle hasn’t been completed when his right foot is in front of Ryan. When Ryan is brought to ground you can clearly see that Tizzano adjusts his feet before contesting the breakdown. While he pulls back to readjust, his hands briefly touch the scrum cap of his team mate who made the tackle.

At no point does Tizzano put hands on Ryan. He only ever goes for the ball.

No need for frame by frame. The official Sky sports highlights are on YouTube and easy to find. You can play it at 0.25 speed and watch it frame by frame. It start’s around 5.30 on their highlights.

The first technical offence in the passage of play is Ryan not releasing the ball on the deck.

He never lifts the ball because he is illegally cleared out by Morgan who goes off his feet in driving through the ruck and hitting him above the shoulder line.

Again, this is while Ryan has refused to release or even attempt to release the ball on the ground which is a clear cut penalty.

Completely agree that a top ranked team finds ways to defend a big half-time lead, and they did not quite pull it off. The fact that Piardi did not run the Head Contact Process in the 79th minute Tizzano/Morgan incident is worth discussion. However, Schmidt will be pointing out to the team that avoiding a defensive breakdown on your own 5m line at that point in the game is the thing in their control. Equally, clarification 3-2022 says you cannot jump or dive as a means of avoiding a tackle, as Sheehan admits to have done, but the question for Australia is why and how they were facing a tap-and-go 5m from their line (again).

Where I disagree with this article is the suggestion that Australia are caught in an excuse-making trap of poor performance. For me they are on a steep curve of improvement, and from what we have seen of Schmidt, there is little reason to assume that this will end now. Granted Australia lacks player depth, and that’s a real problem against big teams and in major campaigns. But the Lions are a pretty good team, probably ranking in the top five in the world, and the rebuilding Wallabies were seconds (and a couple of 50/50 ref calls) away from beating them at the MCG.

In the end, the Wallabies are building to a home RWC, and were expected to lose the Lions series on the way to that goal. Success looks like being seriously competitive in the series loss, with good learnings about what needs to be fixed. A series win would have been a fantastic bonus, and humiliation for the UK/Ireland team.

I expect the Wallabies to be very credible in the 2025 RC, to be much better in 2026, and to be a very challenging opponent for any team in the 2027 RWC.