Andy Farrell says he had “dubious” thoughts about some of the decisions in Ireland’s narrow loss to the Springboks in Pretoria on Saturday night.
A thrilling clash at a sold-out Loftus Versfeld saw Ireland suffer a 27-20 loss, their first defeat to South Africa in eight years.
There was plenty of debate over a few crucial calls in the second half, with winger James Lowe at the centre of most of them.
The New Zealander had a try chalked off by the TMO for an infringement at a heavily contested breakdown and then gifted Cheslin Kolbe a try after keeping Handre Pollard’s touchfinder in play, which was also reviewed.
Ireland lost Craig Casey to a concussion after the scrumhalf was cleaned out by Munster teammate and Bok lock RG Snyman, which was not looked at by the TMO for foul play.
“Sometimes it goes for you and sometimes it doesn’t. You’ll make your own decision on the Craig thing,” Farrell said after the match.
“It’s not for me to say but I saw quite a few of them live and had a dubious thought about it but anyway, that’s life.
“We will go through the right channels and make sure we do things properly as far as those things are concerned. You’ll make of it what you want.
“We have to go through the right channels. Unlucky, lucky, that’s the game as well.
“It was a special play by Kolbe to chase that ball and it’s one of the reasons why they won the World Cup with him chasing down the kicker in France, but we were slack not backing James up.
“You’ll make your own decision on whether he still had the ball in his right hand or whether the ball hit him as he threw it back into the field and his foot was in touch.
“That’s for us all to debate. It is what it is, that is the sport, it’s difficult to referee. You just want consistency, that’s all.”
Overall, Farrell said the Springboks deserved to win, but was proud of Ireland’s ability to fight back from a fizzling start that saw them fall 13-3 behind in the first half.
“It had a little bit of everything, the unexpected was popping up at times and that was the game in the end. South Africa deserved to win the game, so congratulations to them.
“First half I thought we were off. I thought was gave away access for them to be able to play their game.
“Defensively we were a bit passive, certainly for the first try. But then the story of the game for me after some words at half time, I thought it was courageous at times how we defended and got ourselves into the game.
“It is the make-up of this team.
“History would say that even with the type of performance in the first half we hung on in there and we don’t go away.
“There is plenty of teams that would have been under the pump in the first half and got the game run away within the second half and we didn’t, we stayed in the fight and could’ve, should’ve, would’ve at times with some decisions that rightly or wrongly didn’t go our way.”
Photo: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images
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Src: sarugbymag.co.za
