Siya Kolisi: ‘To focus on the ref is not the right thing to do…we stuffed up’
Springboks captain Siya Kolisi speaks ahead of All Blacks fixture.
Siya Kolisi says that the Springboks were masters of their own demise against the All Blacks at Eden Park and referee Karl Dickson is not to blame.
The English referee’s performance has been in the spotlight with many South African fans believing that he got several calls wrong, a stance former Springboks captain Victor Matfield agreed with.
Dickson criticism
“I said on Saturday after the game, the biggest games need the best referee, and unfortunately, we didn’t get it,” the legendary lock said on The Rivals podcast.
“I thought New Zealand got away with two or three scrums in the first half, where they just dived over after overextending, where we didn’t get the penalty, and the first time that Thomas du Toit’s knee touches the ground, it’s a penalty for New Zealand.”
Fellow former Springboks forward Hanyani Shimange also hit out at Dickson’s handling of the fixture, stating that it was a ‘free-for-all’ at the breakdowns.
In response to his sentiments, ex-All Blacks scrum-half Justin Marshall said that he thought the officiating was rather balanced in the Auckland Test, but admitted that Dickson seemed to speak to both the captains quite a lot during the fixture, which points to them being frustrated.
“I did notice Jesse Kriel and Scott Barrett approaching the ref quite a lot,” he said on GBR AUNZ.
“And that means that they’re questioning or asking about stuff. Sometimes, the captain will talk to the ref once or twice during the game, or the ref explains his decision, and the captain just moves on when he’s fine with the decision, but there was a lot of questioning, both captains were at him quite a bit, so there was obviously some frustration there for them to have to do that.”
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Stick and Kolisi’s response
Speaking ahead of the second match between the two proud nations, Kolisi, who has been reinstated as captain for the Springboks, said that Dickson was not to blame for the result at all.
Instead, he rued just how wasteful his side were as they scored just two tries from their 13 visits to the All Blacks’ 22.
He was asked whether he had spoken to Dickson and this weekend’s officials to discuss the perceived ‘harsh calls’ against his side.
“No, we had a meeting about the calls that we didn’t get right in the game and the opportunities that we wasted,” Kolisi replied.
“We can’t control everything that happens in the game. There were a lot of things that we planned that we didn’t get right.
“So, to focus on the ref is not the right thing to do because there were so many things that we could have done to win the game.
“I haven’t had a meeting with Karl because that’s not the place; my place is to get the team ready to go this weekend.”
Springboks assistant coach Mzwandile Stick added that the meetings with World Rugby match officials are handled by former referee Jaco Peyper, who joined SA Rugby’s structures as the national laws advisor after hanging up his whistle.
“We have someone on our staff who is an expert on the laws in Jaco Peyper, and he normally deals with all the match official meetings and all that,” Stick explained.
“We don’t want to overload the players; their job is to focus on playing well. There were quite a few things that the players didn’t do well on the day, and things that we have got to try and fix this weekend.
“When it comes to the match officials, we always try to build a strong relationship with them, and so far it has gone well, so we trust to Jaco to handle things on that side of it. So hopefully we can now fix the things that we need to fix, and it will come right tomorrow.”
Wastefulness
Kolisi added that it was tough to rewatch the defeat to the All Blacks and hopes that the team has learnt from their mistakes.
The Bok skipper rued the inaccuracies in the performance and said they simply cannot afford to be so wasteful again.
“It was tough to see, to create 13 try opportunities in the 22 and just take two, you don’t get those kinds of chances, particularly against the All Blacks,” Kolisi said.
“We just saw how we stuffed it up, and a lot of it was our doing, which was the difficult part of that game. It was frustrating watching it after, and it was individual errors, one after another.
“Hopefully, we have learnt from that and can be better this weekend. They didn’t get a lot of opportunities, but the ones they took.”
