Monday’s Rugby News has all the latest goss from the Scotland game – Cheika on Skelton, Vern Cotter on the ref, Kuridrani on Kuridrani – and the results from the weekend’s play.
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Skelton Beltin’
Michael Cheika isn’t happy about Will Skelton’s yellow card on the weekend, according to the Daily Telegraph. Skelton was sinbinned towards the end of the match after dangerously shoulder charging Scottish lock Johnny Gray.
“It’s fair, he’s got to put his arms around that guy and he knows that, it’s ill-disciplined from him,” Cheika said.
“Those decisions come down to the ref – whether it’s a penalty or a yellow, but regardless it’s an offence. He doesn’t have to do it. It’s after the whistle. We had our own penalty, it’s after the whistle and it wasn’t clever.
“He knows that himself. I don’t even need to tell him so I don’t think he’ll be worried about me saying it here.”
Skelton was sin binned only seven minutes after coming on in his first Wallabies appearance since August.
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Cotter Ain’t Happy
Scotland coach Vern Cotter is a bit miffed about the whole referee thing, after airing his concerns that his side didn’t “get the rub of the green”.
“It might have come down to – I’ve got to be careful what I say, but I don’t think we got the rub of the green,” Cotter told the (London) Daily Telegraph, via Planet Rugby.
“There were eight penalties against us in the second half and only two for us. There were a number of things – those are things we can’t control. I just think there were things that didn’t quite go our way.”
Scottish captain Greig Laidlaw is of a similar opinion. “As Vern said, when you go back and look at a few decisions we were harshly penalised on a few occasions,” the scrumhalf said, “and it just gives them easy field position to be able to play in our half.”
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Kuridrani In Krisis
Tevita Kuridrani has answered every lazy sports journalist’s favourite question, telling rugby.com.au what was going through his mind when he scored the match winning try.
“I was pretty down [after failing to tackle Scottish Huw Jones immediately before he scored a try]. It was a one-on-one and I missed it and I really wanted to do something to make up for it, lucky I got the try,” he said.
Cheika continues the story. “He was hurting because he missed one early on and cost us a try,” the Wallabies coach said.
“I saw him in the dressing room at halftime and he was hitting himself in the head, which I told him wasn’t advisable because it won’t do him any good.”
“He cleaned up a very messy play by our boys [to score],” Cheika continued.
“We didn’t get that game – they spoiled us at that play we were trying to set up – and he cleaned it up, made something of it and then he probably should’ve given it to Israel, just quietly.”
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All the Results
South Africa’s poor run of form continued, losing out to Eddie’s England 37-21. That’s now ten in a row for England. Wales came back from their near-death experience with the Wallabies to beat Argentina 24-22.
The Wallabies’ next opponent France thrashed Samoa 52-8, while Ireland prepared for their re-do with NZ next week by beating Canada 52-21. The Kiwis themselves saw off Italy 68-10
Japan beat Georgia in Tbilisi 28-22, while on the other side of the Black Sea Romania beat the US for first time in 17 years, 23-10. The Trump presidency is off to a bad start.
Meanwhile, the other games of note were Tonga‘s comfortable 28-13 win in Spain, the Barbarians (featuring six Aussies) trouncing of Fiji 40-7 in Belfast, and Germany‘s impressive 24-21 success over World Cup qualifiers Uruguay.
Full Results:
Australia 23 Scotland 22
England 37 South Africa 21
Wales 24 Argentina 22
France 52 Samoa 8
Italy 10 New Zealand 68
Ireland 52 Canada 21
Georgia 22 Japan 28
Romania 23 USA 10
Spain 13 Tonga 28
Germany 24 Uruguay 21
Fiji 7 Barbarians 40
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