Eddie backs Wallabies in decoy row

EDDIE O’SULLIVAN has added his tuppence-worth in the war of words over decoy runners between Australia’s Eddie Jones and England’s Clive Woodward — and the Irish coach has sided with the Wallaby.

The slagging match between the rival coaches has been raging in the Australian press all week, long after Woodward stated that Australia’s second-try against Argentina last Friday was illegal because of the use of Matt Burke as a decoy runner.

But having watched the incident on television, O’Sullivan believes the try in question was totally legitimate.

“I think it wasn’t obstruction,” said O’Sullivan, “because the defender actually turned his shoulder in and took Matt Burke, so the defender made the decision to tackle the Australian player.

“But I did think that there was an obstruction in the Japanese try against Scotland. The Japanese centre cleaned out the Scottish centre and he was never near the ball. I think there’s nothing wrong with decoy runners as such, it’s just that the refereeing and the management of it is very difficult.

“It happens instantaneously, it’s a judgement call by a referee who’s not in the best situation to make it and they’re usually fairly big calls.”

The Irish coach even offered a solution to the ever-growing problems that decoy runners are causing.

“The simple way out of this is to make sure the ball is not passed behind anyone’s back,” said O’Sullivan. “There’s no dramas, I could live with that. But if we’re going to go on with it, we’ll have to go upstairs to the TV referee if there’s a try involved. It would have been very simple to go to the TV match official on Friday night and either Joe Roff scored the try or Matt Burke was penalised and we start from there.”

Australian assistant coach Glen Ella has also joined the row and last night Ella was very forthright in his dismissal of the England coach’s criticism.

“We welcome Clive’s opinions and he is always welcome to express them,” he said. “Unfortunately for him, he is not refereeing the game.

“There were similar decoys used in other matches and looking at the opening game, I didn’t think we interfered with any opposition players.”

Burke agreed, claiming innocence.

“We didn’t take a player out. I pulled up and stopped. It is a legitimate tactic, it makes the defence make a decision on whether to stay with one player or slide,” he said.

Meanwhile, O’Sullivan has admitted some teams have been disadvantaged by the World Cup draw.

O’Sullivan’s Argentine counterpart Marcelo Loffreda has condemned the fixture scheduling, which will force his team to complete their four Pool A games in 16 days while Ireland have 21 days to play their games.

Loffreda used the cramped programme as his excuse for the 14 changes he made to the Pumas starting line-up for tonight’s encounter with Namibia in Gosford.

Italy and Tonga are in an even worse position, having to complete their fixtures in 14 and 15 days respectively; Italian coach John Kirwan has already illustrated his discontent when he fielded an under-strength side for the opening game with the All Blacks.

However, while O’Sullivan can see Loffreda’s point, he cannot understand why he has waited so long to make it.

“The Italian schedule is lunacy and Tonga’s is not much better. But it is a bit late to start bellyaching about it now,” he said.

“The fixtures were released nine months ago. That was the time to start jumping up and down about it. If you let it bother you now, when nothing can be done, it is just a waste of time and energy.

“I guess everyone would like their games spread out and we have obviously done quite well, but the TV schedulers won’t allow matches just to be played on a Saturday and Sunday, so some had to be in midweek.”