‘Frustrated’ Sir John Kirwan slams ’14-point turnaround’ call as Springboks ‘definitely’ should have had a yellow card
Kurt-Lee Arendse scoring try after controversial incident and All Blacks legend Sir John Kirwan.
Sir John Kirwan has hit out at the officiating in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series finale, pinpointing the decision to allow Kurt-Lee Arendse’s try as a key point in the match.
The All Blacks legend spent the first nine minutes of the Rivals podcast moaning about the officiating in Saturday’s US clash, with the 61-year-old particularly frustrated that Cameron Hanekom was not penalised.
Looking to get back into the contest at 29-21 in arrears, New Zealand put together a spellbinding attack which sent Damian McKenzie through.
The controversial incident
The full-back had two options either side of him – Josh Moorby and Will Jordan – but he chose the latter where Hanekom was lurking.
It was deemed by the officials that the tackle made by the Springboks replacement and Moorby receiving the ball was simultaneous.
The wing also tripped up prior to the hit but that was deemed accidental and, as a result, Arendse was able to collect the ball, run 70 metres and touch down to open up a 36-21 lead for his side.
“I thought it was an amazing series, I thought it was fantastic for rugby, both sides gave everything and it was incredible,” Kirwan said. “[But] what frustrated me was the refereeing, there’s just something about the way he refs, you can’t get any rhythm.
“I thought a couple of decisions went against us. That early tackle and that leg trip is definitely a penalty and definitely a yellow card.
“I thought the rhythm of the game was falling our way, I thought we’re going to come back like the first Test, I thought the Springboks were out on their feet.
“Leg trip and an early tackle, he looks at it three times. If you’re a New Zealander, you look at it and go, ‘that’s an early tackle and a trip every day of the week’.
“He looks at it and it’s a 14-point turnaround, for me that was the game there, so that was frustrating.”
Kirwan’s admission
South Africa ended up claiming a 43-28 triumph over the All Blacks on Saturday as they sealed a 3-1 series triumph after initially going 1-0 down in Johannesburg.
Rassie Erasmus’ men won three Tests in a row and Kirwan did admits that the back-to-back world champions were the better team throughout.
“Retrospectively, I think the Springboks deserved to win the series in the end, I think that we made too many critical errors at the wrong time, we need to go away and look at that,” he said.
“There were some silly penalties at critical times, Tupou Vaa’i holding on a bit too long when we were putting them under pressure, so we just let the game slip a wee bit, but that doesn’t take away from what a great series it was.
“It’s been fantastic for the game, it’s been an amazing series, I’ve absolutely loved it, but I was pretty frustrated yesterday to be fair.”
That did not stop Kirwan from having one final moan at the refereeing, however, which he believe did not help the flow of the game in Baltimore.
“Why would you put a northern hemisphere ref in charge of a southern hemisphere game? Forget the results, you guys deserved to win, I’ll admit that, right across the series you were the better side… but this ref has the ability to just make the game pedantic,” he added.
