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Former Ireland prop Mike Ross felt the Irish scrummagers were ‘harshly-done-by’ against New Zealand in Saturday night’s Rugby World Cup quarter final.
The Cork man says that Wayne Barnes’ brace of scrum-time penalty calls against Andrew Porter could easily have gone the other way.
Barnes came down hard on Porter for gaining advantage from an illegal scrummaging position on two occasions but fellow prop Mike Ross feels these were very marginal calls.
“I went back and looked at a couple of those scrums and another referee gives that the other way,” Ross told SportsJOE’s House of Rugby.
Ross, who won 61 caps for Ireland between 2009 and 2016 acknowledges that New Zealand were very clever in how they targeted Porter, however.
“What New Zealand tried to do is they tried to create a three on two, and the way they did that was with Ethan De Groot pulling his head outside of Tadhg (Furlong) and trying to slip outside him.
“And then Lomax was turning in and angling across the scrum, trying to create a three-on-two to leave Porter behind him.”
“Porter is penalised going forward, which, if that’s a French referee, you’re getting those calls,” adds Ross.
“Now Tadhg kept the scrum moving sideways so when Lomax turned in, he had nowhere to go and one of them, he (Lomax) actually gets lifted off the ground by Porter and dumped backwards.
“I felt we were pretty harshly done by in the scrum.”
“First scrum definitely. Second scrum, you could say maybe, sometimes it’s illegal to lift a guy off the ground but it wasn’t a case that we were dominated in the scrum, it was technical calls.”
Heroic New Zealand
None-the-less Ross and fellow guest Johne Murphy acknowledged that a ‘heroic’ New Zealand side were deserving of their win, having played their best rugby of the last four years.
“But in fairness to New Zealand, they defended heroically,” said Ross.
“They’re momentum shifts,” said Murphy as regards to the scrum penalties.
“It gives them easy releases off the 20 in terms of a penalty, when Ireland were pushing hard with a couple of kicks in behind, that one from Gibson Park to Pete for that one-on-one, and it goes forward.
“The penalty just allows New Zealand to take a breath, re-set. It’s a 50:50 call. Wayne Barnes saw pictures that he didn’t like and that was it.
“But you have to pay tribute to how New Zealand played, how their back-row functioned,” added Murphy.
“Their breakdown work was unbelievable. At ruck-time, they were smart, controlled and picked their teams. They only gave away one roll away penalty. I thought their back-row was the reason they won. They out-played our back-row on Saturday evening.”
Speaking from experience, Ross says that if they’re lucky, it will take months for the Irish players to come to terms with the loss.
“Like, I was involved in two quarter final defeats, 2011 against Wales and 2015 against Argentina. Without being too over-wrought about it, it is a bit like there’s a death in the family.
“You’re almost like in mourning for what could have been and it takes a few months to get over that, if you ever do. It still stings, when I think back to losing those games.”
Watch the full episode of House of Rugby here:
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