The contentious, at least from an Irish perspective, match-ending scrum penalty awarded by referee Wayne Barnes to Wales during Saturday's Six Nations victory over Ireland in Cardiff will be resolved over the next 48 hours when World Rugby's High Performance match official manager, Joel Jutge, will respond to a number of queries put forward by Irish coach Joe Schmidt.
This is a standard practice for coaches and officials in the wake of all Test matches. The head scratching that ensued after Barnes elected to penalise a dominant Irish scrum, not for the first time in the match, reportedly on the advice of Argentinian touch judge Federico Anselmi was not just relegated to supporters, pundits and media but to some of the protagonists and the Irish coaching team.
Ireland forwards coach Simon Easterby conceded after reviewing the scrum, he's not exactly sure of the offence. "We have as we always do, reported back to the referee Wayne (Barnes) and Joel Jutge and we are still awaiting clarification on a couple of decisions, that being one of them.
“I’d love to give you a bit more information . . . I’d like to know myself, why certain decisions were given,” he smiled. “We prepared really well on the weekend, especially for the guys in the middle, which we do every week. By midweek of the following week (after a match) we get a chance to get feedback.
"We do that regardless of the result, every time. We will have to see what comes back from them following our review of the game. Joe (Schmidt) is on top of all that with Joel (Jutge), who is in charge of the referees for the Six Nations Championship. Hopefully we'll get some feedback later today, Wednesday or Thursday and that will give us some clarity on a few of the decisions."
It is equally important to clarify that the Irish management and players weren’t looking to hide behind adverse officiating decisions to explain away the disappointment of defeat. They acknowledged their shortcomings, allied to exceptional Welsh defence and the home side’s ability to take their opportunities.
One area that misfired was Ireland’s lineout, which Easterby acknowledged: “Yes it was (a disappointment). Sometimes you get a bit of error from what we did, not quite as accurate as we would have liked.
“I thought that Wales defended a couple of lineouts particularly well also. You can’t always account for how well they’re going to defend those. We dropped our standards, no doubt. Certainly in the first half we didn’t react particularly well on our own ball but also theirs; we gave them some serious momentum.
“We turned it around in the second half; we fixed a few things and were far more dominant. All the things we didn’t get right are easily fixable and have been in the first couple of days (training) this week.
“We know we have certain elements we need to improve on, particularly lineout time and our discipline and if we get those elements right, we back the players to make good decisions.”
He confirmed that Ireland had no injury concerns ahead of Thursday’s team announcement and that there was a quiet resolution within the group to focus on factors that they could directly influence, like performances values and simply winning, for Saturday’s game against Scotland at Murrayfield rather than becoming preoccupied by points differential.
