World Rugby admit three offside penalties wrongly awarded against Ireland - Schmidt

Ireland coach Joe Schmidt has received confirmation from World Rugby that three penalties awarded to Japan during Saturday's shock 19-12 defeat to the host nation in Shizuoka were “incorrect calls” by Australian referee Angus Gardner and his match officials.

Schmidt revealed that feedback from the sport’s governing body showed three of the four offside calls were made in error.

Japan fly-half Yo Tamura successfully kicked four of the five penalties he attempted while Schmidt also made reference to a scrum penalty against the Irish pack in the first half as he described his frustration with such decision-making.

However the Irish coach insisted that the errors should not take away from Japan’s deserved seven-point victory.

“We were penalised for offside four times and we’ve now got the feedback that three of those were incorrect calls,” said Schmidt.

“People were asking us about our discipline. It’s pretty hard to keep getting off the line and onto the front foot when you are getting those calls. Two of them were from an AR [assistant referee Jerome Garces] who is going to be refereeing us on Thursday, so we know we’re going to have to be on our best behaviour.

“One thing I would say about this team is that they try to go out and deliver and, generally speaking, it’s unusual for us to have a higher penalty count than our opponents.

“So it’s frustrating that in the first two games, I thought Wayne [Barnes] did a super job.

“I know that, to a degree, they were happy with how Wayne went in the first game [against Scotland] as well. That’s our fault if we were on the wrong side of the penalty count there but I do think we’ve got to try to look after that as best we can.

We’ve got to make sure that we don’t become passive in a game to an opposition that are playing in front of their home crowd. You’d have to be really impressed with the way that [Japan] got themselves back into the game.

“If it wasn’t us that lost the game, I’d say, ‘Wow, that’s fantastic for the tournament.’ “Everywhere we’ve gone, the Japanese people have been incredibly excited about the game. They’re delighted with us, obviously, and I think loads of interest has been spiked by that.”