DEFEATED Lions coach Warren Gatland refused to criticise the officials in the wake of his side’s second Test loss to South Africa and warned that the game is headed in a dangerous direction after a controversial week which saw Springbok director of rugby Rassie Erasmus take to social media to air his grievances at the officiating in the first Test.
ut the Kiwi will not replicate Erasmus’s video of last week, preferring to keep to the traditional feedback channels.
The Lions squandered a half-time winning position and were over-powered by the world champions in the second-half, but they could point to a number of key decisions during an ill tempered first 40 minutes that went the home side’s way.
In particular, Cheslin Kolbe appeared lucky to escape with just a yellow card for taking Conor Murray out in the air, while Faf de Klerk was not punished for a no-arm hit on the scrum-half and
Bongi Mbonambi got away with blindsiding Dan Biggar after the whistle.
The hosts could point to Duhan van der Merwe’s tip tackle on Pieter-Steph du Toit and a knee drop from Maro Itoje on Damian de Allende as referee Ben O’Keeffe was a busy man after coming under enormous pressure from Erasmus on Twitter before the game.
History, of course, is written by the winners and after the Springboks engineered a 27-9 win others may be tempted to follow Erasmus’s lead.
“Look, I hope that doesn’t happen,” Gatland said.
“We’ve got systems and processes in place, and hopefully World Rugby does look at that in terms of making sure that everyone follows the protocols and I think that’s important. We do press conferences and try and give feedback and information, and we deal with the referees through World Rugby. That’s the process.
“I hope it doesn’t get to a situation where we end up with things on Twitter, and people airing their views in that way and not through the proper channels.
“I found it quite strange that that approach was taken, but it is definitely not something that I will get involved in. It is important that we keep the integrity in the game as much as we possibly can.
Gatland was accused of undermining the integrity of the series before the first Test as the Springboks alleged he had put undue pressure on Television Match Official Marius Jonker.
“I thought it (Erasmus’s 62 minute video) was pretty interesting,” he said.
“There’s been enough said. I won’t be going on social media this week and I don’t really want to comment on that because I want to let other people take care of that. The last thing we need is a war of words and being accused of doing certain things.
“It’s amazing to me how the narrative changed with regard to the TMO. I mean I didn’t make one comment leading up to the game last week on the TMO, yet I was accused of questioning his integrity. That’s the messages they were giving out.
“We will keep things to ourselves and go through the proper channels when we talk with the referee after reviewing the game and then hopefully get some feedback from him and us give them some feedback as well.”
On the decision to give Kolbe a yellow card rather than red for taking Conor Murray out in the air, Gatland said: “I’d not going to comment on the referee’s decisions.
“We will have our meeting with the referee this week and see what the assessors come back with in terms of their decisions. It didn’t look great from where I was, but he decided it was a yellow card.”
Gatland will consider making changes to a team that was overpowered after half-time and destroyed in the air.
“It’s very early on now and the game has only just finished but it’s making sure that we do a proper review of the game and look at individuals.
“We have got lots of options in terms of bringing some guys in to give us energy or momentum as well.
“The players are very disappointed but next Saturday is a Cup final and that is how we have to look at it and prepare.
“There’s a few things we’ve got to tidy up in terms of our game but it’s one-all and South Africa put a huge amount of emotion into that, so we have got that chance next week to hopefully tidy the series up.”