Scott Barrett has criticised the influence of World Rugby’s smart mouth guards after the Chiefs beat champions Crusaders in the 2024 Super Rugby opener on Friday.

Josh Ioane landed two late penalties to give the Chiefs a 33-29 victory in Hamilton. The hosts held off a second-half charge by the visitors, who scored two unanswered tries by Chay Fihaki and another by captain Barrett to fight back from 27-10 down at half time to lead before Ioane struck.

This season, players have been instructed to wear smart mouth guards, which can detect a high-impact collision and prompt the removal of a player from action for a HIA.

However, a dumbfounded Anton Lienert-Brown was forced to leave the field at Waikato Stadium, and speaking post-match, Barrett told reporters: “Honestly, I think it’s a step too far, for a player. When you’re getting dragged [off the field] and you’re looking around [going] ‘what actually happened?’

“Personally, we obviously want player welfare and that’s paramount, but I think if you’re influencing when key players are going off and they don’t know what for, I think that can be frustrating for a player.

“So I think there needs to be a happy medium somewhere within it.”

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The Cantabrians, in their first competitive match under Rob Penney after Scott Robertson’s departure to the All Blacks, looked to trademark Crusaders strengths of scrum power and breakdown physicality to slow the pace of the game.

They were denied a try when referee Nick Berry, who made a similar decision recently to deny Scotland a Six Nations win over France, decided the ball had been held up over the line.

But soon afterwards Fihaki ran a brilliant line and stormed in for a converted try that put the Crusaders in front for the first time at 29-27.

The momentum was firmly with the Crusaders but Etene Nanai-Seturo came up with a brilliant 50:22 that ultimately gave Ioane the chance to give the Chiefs their first points of the second half and wrest back the lead for good.

“It wasn’t going to be easy,” said Chiefs captain Luke Jacobson. “Took a little bit to get a bit of momentum back but, once we did, we held onto it and managed to get a couple of three-pointers over.”

Barrett said the Crusaders made too many errors in the first half, adding: “When they’ve got a lethal back three like they have, they carve you up.

“The effort was there. We’ll learn heaps from this and be better going forward.”

Photo: @SuperRugby/Twitter

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