Last updated 23:15, June 16 2018
ANTHONY AU-YEUNG/GETTY
Referee Angus Gardner brandishes red for Benjamin Fall, who is comforted by his French captain Mathieu Bastareaud.
Referee Angus Gardner brandishes red for Benjamin Fall, who is comforted by his French captain Mathieu Bastareaud.
A week after he expressed outrage at an All Blacks high tackle that went unpunished, French coach Jacques Brunel was talking refereeing decisions once again.
This time he was more guarded in his assessment of the controversial red card dished out to his fullback Benjamin Fall after a collision with an airborne Beauden Barrett who suffered concussion in the 12th minute of the second rugby test in Wellington.
Without Fall, France fought strongly against a patchy All Blacks who edged to a 26-13 series-clinching victory.
It looks nasty as Beauden Barrett crashes to the turf after colliding with Benjamin Fall of France.
Through an interpreter, Brunel appeared bemused but wasn't about to take aim at Australian referee Angus Gardner and his assistants for a decision that had a huge impact on the match before a stunned full house of 34,422 at Westpac Stadium.
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"I'm not going to talk about the sanction because we need to get back the video and see what happened. In any case he was late and when you're late it's your fault," Brunel said.
French coach Jacques Brunel reserved his judgement on referee Angus Gardner and his red carding of fullback Benjamin Fall.
"He was somehow put off balance and in that case a yellow is warranted, a red we don't know. We were prepared to play with 14 and we managed the situation pretty well."
After the first test Brunel's words may have been lost in translation but he was unhappy at the way Remy Grosso suffered facial fractures in a high shot from two All Blacks Sam Cane and Ofa Tu'ungafasi. Neither were sanctioned for what he described as "dangerous and illegal" actions, while French winger Paul Gabrillagues was yellow carded for a high tackle on Ryan Crotty that caused no damage.
Asked if he was frustrated that his team seemed to again be on the wrong end of a decision, Brunel kept his poise.
"No I don't want to discuss decisions right now. We did it last week and we do it every week with a group of referees. We're not always in agreement but we will analyse it. The main thing is we showed character through these difficult moments."
Certainly it was a big step forward from their 52-11 thrashing in the first test in Auckland, which they played with 15 men for all but 10 minutes.
It also left Brunel rueing missed opportunities and wondering what might have been if they had 15 for the whole test in Wellington.
After a rollicking start, and a patchy one from the All Blacks, France second five-eighth Geoffrey Doumayrou lost the ball just short of the line in the sixth minute after the defence was carved open by flanker Kelian Galletier.
France were energetic and physical and forced All Black errors, with home assistant coach Ian Foster saying the tourists won the collision areas. "They won that little battle and probably outsmarted us in that area."
Said Brunel: "We saw very good spirit and this is exactly what we wanted to see. The team showed it had a lot of character and they managed to fight right until the end.
"The circumstances were very complicated. The margin was closer and throughout the match there were opportunities that didn't always eventuate."
Captain Mathieu Bastareaud was one of his side's best, rallying them after they were rocked by Fall's dismissal.
Whether they can push the All Blacks under the roof in Dunedin next Saturday is another matter, but they at least responded to the skipper's words.
"It was a very tough start but we showed some heart, we showed some courage. It's something we needed to do and throughout the match we stayed very close together and we fought for everything and that is the positive," Bastareaud said.