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'Disgraceful' - Phil Kearns' latest on screen spray
By Ian Cameron
Outspoken Australian pundit Phil Kearns has launched a remarkable broadside against referee Romain Poite and his fellow officials following the Wallabies loss to Wales in Tokyo tonight.
The Wallabies fell 25-29 to Warren Gatland's men amid muggy weather conditions in the Japanese capital.
The men in red survived a late quarter Australian fightback in a game that was again marked by several controversial refereeing decisions.
Wallabies centre Samu Kerevi was penalized for allegedly leading with the forearm in a collision with replacement flyhalf Rhys Patchell.
Kearns was furious at the call, and put Poite on blast on Australian television.
"The whole referring display has been disgraceful, not only by Romain Poite but by Ben Skeen as well," Kearns said on Fox Sports.
"Wales have played some smart rugby. Wallabies have made some dumb mistakes, but it was just embarrassing that the referee hasn't gone back to look how far, he's even two-meters in front of his own defensive line that are moving up, that's an embarrassment."
Former Wallaby Stephen Hoiles backed up his Fox Sports' colleague.
"If you're going to spend five minutes of the game to check a ball carry, you've got to go back and check for offside," Hoiles said on Fox Sports.
"Michael Hooper made a very good point, what is the ball carrier meant to do? All of this came on the back of that terrible decision against Samu's ball carry. It's been a huge momentum swing back to Wales.
"This is what happens when World Rugby come out and make a weak statement after week one and say they're not happy with the referring.
"You make referees paranoid, the (Television Match Officials) become paranoid, they talk to each other all game."
Speaking directly after the game, Hooper remarked: "Of course, it’s a World Cup. There were some big calls, some went our way, some didn’t. We’ve got to pick ourselves back up."
Press conference with Scotland coach Gregor Townsend after announcing his team for Monday’s World Cup match against Samoa.
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Latest Comments
BB can’t pass? Right…
Go to commentsEven the 20/30 cappers did too I reckon.
IDK, I think Jordan has a limited life span in this side unless he can develop more to his game. Like you go on to mention, I think theyres more important things to worry about than the effectiveness of someone's extra strings, or secondary components to their game.
Bash backs are Fosters thing, and to a large part they've made it work. Theyre now one of the best teams in the world.
They boy's trucked it up a bit against Italy in the redzone, and against France, wasn't that effective without the right players probably.
Try and take a look at it this way. Dissapointed Havili and Blackadder were in the side? Havili despite clearly shown that he can't do what the team needs at 12 was kept on for the RWC. Back goes down and he brings in Blackadder who doesn't play. Refuses to drop Christie when he should and look who starts this season. Beauden Barret not playing well enough to keep his 10 jersey but we gotta keep him in the side. Weve only got one 8, we stuff developing another I'll just play Ardie every game.
This years team wasn't burdened overly with injuries but they were in every position Razor might have wanted to try and development, severely limiting options. I'm not defending Razor as there was also plenty of other opportunity to make up for it and he was a little gunshy, but I'm also not going to overly criticise him because he chose cohesion over a black slate.
I think more and more people are on board with it being time to try alternatives, but then again, how would they have reacted to a loss against Italy? 😉
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