World Rugby backs referee Poite over England v Italy ruck debate

The tactic clearly got under the skin of England coach Eddie Jones, who has called for World Rugby to revise the laws of the game. I remember we did it once because the Cheetahs had guys attached to the ball-carrier all the time, and you couldn’t really access the ball.

“We are playing absolutely legally. We practised for a game of rugby all week and we didn’t get it”.

The Italians did not send any player to the breakdown, meaning a ruck was not formed and their players could not be ruled offside while standing in the England backline. “There’s an obvious weakness in that you can pull out of the tackle and put no one else in, but it’s hard to avoid them pulling you in”.

Initially, the England players were baffled.

England required a long time to get to grips with the situation, with French referee Romain Poite at one stage telling them: “I’m the referee, not the coach, you have to find a solution”, after flanker James Haskell asked for clarification.

Ben Ryan, the Englishman who coached Fiji to Olympic Rugby Sevens gold, has defended Italy’s no-ruck tactic in Sunday’s Six Nations game at Twickenham and accused England coach Eddie Jones of double standards.

However, a spokesperson for World Rugby, the game’s global governing body said on Monday: “The match official team officiated law correctly”.

“It wasn’t fair criticism”.

“They’re already talking about coming down here and beating us”, added the 57-year-old. “It’s certainly something that we’re going to have to learn from”.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and over again and expecting different results”.

“In the game when Australia did it to Ireland through David Pocock, or Wasps scored a winning try against Toulouse, it’s tactical genius”.

I’ll have to give my money back to [RFU chief executive] Ian Ritchie, because no one’s had rugby yet.

They had hammered Italy in the corner, sucking in defenders, before switching back to the space where Nowell waited. “We want to keep the Calcutta Cup here”.

The former Ireland fullback, who guided the Azzurri to their first-ever win over South Africa in November, added he was fed up with different standards being applied to Italy.

He’s had mixed success so far.

“We beat South Africa and it is “a bad South Africa side”.

Te’o made the most of his first start in the Six Nations, scoring a crucial try in his team’s 36-15 win over Italy.

Looking ahead to the Scotland game, Jones started the mind games early as he looks to set up an attempt for a world-record 19th win on the bounce against Ireland.

O’Shea confesses he has a “long, hard road ahead”, but is also frustrated that his side isn’t given the respect it deserves on the global stage. “What we did today, we played to the laws”. We played to the laws and I thought we were fantastic. We wanted to get a bit of respect. After all, Italy are just the most prominent team to exploit this loophole, not the first.