Rassie: Referee was ‘human’ in not giving Boks final scrum reward

Erasmus said the Springboks should have understood the referee would not continually penalise France's collapsed scrums in front of their home crowd. Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus said his team should have understood that referee Andrea Piardi wouldn’t continually penalise France for collapsing scrums, and should have kicked for a lineout or a penalty during a crucial stage in their defeat on Friday night. The Springboks came back from 21-7 at half-time to ultimately fall 21-19 in Paris, with a missed Manie Libbok conversion the difference between the teams, though France’s Maxime Lucu also missed a penalty. The Springboks dominated the scrums, even while Jasper Wiese was off for a 20-minute red card and centre Damian de Allende packed down at flank in the set-piece. Scrum dominance unrewarded But after repeatedly winning scrum penalties in France’s 22 in the final quarter of the game, while the score was 21-14, Piardi gave the hosts a final warning. Still, they collapsed the next scrum, though the referee told South Africa to play the ball without a penalty advantage. Pieter-Steph du Toit crashed over but was held up, and France had the ball again. The Springboks lost much of their momentum after this, though French prop Regis Montagne was finally shown a yellow card for collapsing a scrum in the middle of the field minutes later – too little, too late. “The refs are human,” Erasmus said. “I’m not pointing fingers. I’m saying we made the wrong call. “In front of a crowd like this, to keep penalising the home team… It’s just human to not keep penalising if they already got a card or two for that [though that came later]. “Understanding what the referee goes through at a crowd like this and maybe expecting too much to get return in the scrums. Maybe kicking for the corner or kicking for poles would have been better.” The coach said a similar thing happened to the Springboks in their first Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry match against the All Blacks at Ellis Park. There, after three scrums in front of the All Blacks’ posts with New Zealand leading 19-16, prop Gerhard Steenekamp was finally penalised for ‘walking around’, and the hosts lost all momentum. They ultimately lost 33-16. Springboks should put themselves in referee’s shoes “I think you must put yourself in the referee’s shoes there,” Erasmus referred back to the France game. “He’s given yellow cards, he’s warned them, talked to them, strict on them, there’s a lot of people here [the crowd]. ‘I can let this ball play out or make a technical call’. That’s why [he did that]. “I’m not blaming the ref. I’m saying that’s where we must sometimes think about what is going through the referee’s head. “Because it’s tough to give seven penalties in a row, and another yellow card. We should understand it’s human for a ref to say ‘let’s just let this one play out’. I’m saying that with no anger. We’re all human.”