Andrew ups war of words

Rob Andrew has upped the tension ahead of the match between the All Blacks and England by suggesting that the Kiwis are still struggling to move on psychologically from the World Cup quarter-final defeat last year.

Rob Andrew has upped the tension ahead of the match between the All Blacks and England by suggesting that the Kiwis are still struggling to move on psychologically from the World Cup quarter-final defeat last year.

All Black lock Ali Williams yesterday re-opened the debate over the World Cup inquest by once again questioning the performance of Wayne Barnes in the defeat to France, but Andrew said that even talking about it now was indicative of an inability to get over it.

“It's something they have to address,” he said to reporters on Friday.

“When I first took over two years ago (as elite rugby director) I said thought 2003 created problems for England rugby. We couldn't get over the hangover of winning it… and it appears the New Zealanders can't get over the hangover of losing it.

“Whether it's the coaches talking about it or Ali Williams still going on about Wayne Barnes …. Wayne's one of the best referees in the world.

Andrew rather shot down his own argument though, by harking back to refereeing from 15 years ago that he believed cost him an honour of his own: a late penalty awarded to the All Blacks by Australian referee Brian Kinsey which handed the ABs a 20-18 win over the B&I Lions.

“We all complain about how games are refereed. I'd have won the Lions series 2-0 here in '93 had it not been for a poor refereeing decision by an Australian in the first test, we lost 18-16 but I haven't gone on about it,” he said, going on about it.

“I didn't think Alain Rolland did particularly well in the World Cup final last year (England lost 15-6),” Andrew added.

“But hey, that's life.”

Andrew said his tour party had detected the depression still prevalent in the New Zealand game since arriving 10 days ago.

“We've seen it. There's clearly been a lot of pressure (on the All Blacks) in the last week, it looks to be self-inflicted pressure and they have to deal with that,” he said.

Welshman Nigel Owens controls tomorrow's match. Who'd be him?