Aussies dismiss decoy claims

THE Australian camp yesterday dismissed claims by England coach Clive Woodward that the Wallabies use decoy runners as a deliberate ploy to block defenders.

Woodward reignited a long-running feud with Wallabies coach Eddie Jones by claiming Joe Roff’s try in Australia’s opening World Cup game against Argentina came as a result of a “blatant midfield block” from Matt Burke.

Matt Giteau fed the ball to Roff behind Burke’s back, and the ACT Brumbies winger was free to ghost over for the game-clinching try without a Pumas defender laying a hand on him.

“We have discussed the Roff try,” said Woodward. “It’s back to the old chestnut of what is a block or a dummy run.

“For me, he blocked him. It was very well done and very difficult to referee because of the speed at which it is happening, but it is the rules of the game.

“It is not easy to pick up, it is part of the game, whether it is good for the game going forward, that is for another time, it is a part of this World Cup.” Burke, though, insisted he had run his line, as he is perfectly entitled to do, and did not make contact with the Argentine defender as Giteau spun it to Roff.

“I pulled up well short,” Burke said. “I don’t see anything wrong with it. Obviously there is a problem if you go and literally take the bloke out. That’s something that you don’t condone.”

Australia’s assistant coach Glen Ella claimed the use of a decoy runner is far from illegal and that the Wallabies have been employing the deceptive tactic for over a decade.

“We’ve been doing those sort of plays since 1979, 1980 and no-one complained about it then and all of a sudden we’re starting to get complaints about it again,” Ella said.

Woodward first raised his concerns over Australia’s use of decoy runners last November, and in June the England coach accused Jones of placing undue pressure on the referee.

“Nothing surprises me,” said Jones.

“The whole object of rugby is to have the ball in hand and have options. If you’ve got a coach making comments about a side having options with the ball, and trying to make an issue of it, I think it’s a little bit silly.”

Meanwhile, All Blacks winger Caleb Ralph yesterday claimed he had never been trained to deliberately block a man when acting as a decoy runner.

“It’s designed to deceive the defence. It’s not meant to block, it’s meant to deceive,” he insisted.

“It’s only a problem if the decoy runnershields the man and the ball at the same time. If the ball is gone, the runner is entitled to be wherever he wants. You are not allowed to actually come and take him out, but you can run your line and after you’ve run, you do what you can to avoid him. I don’t know what the problem is.”

Ralph believes it could be one of the fundamental differences between rugby in the two hemispheres.

“When we go to the northern hemisphere the referees see it pretty differently,” he said.

Many feel Woodward is attempting to plant a seed of doubt into the mind of dangerous opposition players England could meet further down the track. But Ralph said his preparations for a game against England would not be altered by any pre-match comments. “That wouldn’t change the way we would approach things.”