Henry lashes out at Irish referees over ‘lack of fitness’

ALL BLACKS hierarchy have complained about Irish referees’ lack of fitness for the second time in less than six months with head coach Graham Henry taking a swipe at Irish whistler Alan Lewis.

The Dubliner took charge of New Zealands’ closing November series victory over Wales last weekend and according to Henry, came down hard on the his side. In the aftermath, Henry called on the IRB to appoint two referees as a solution to fatigue which he attributed some erroneous calls to.

“It would be a good idea to have two referees. You sub the first one when he’s buggered and get the second one on,” said Henry. “I’m not being stupid. I honestly believe it would be an asset for the game because they do get into oxygen debt and then they struggle to make good decisions. Anything to help the game would be good and I think that would be a positive.”

In July, Henry’s assistant Wayne Smith told Lewis he needed to shape up to keep up with the quicker game as new IRB rules took effect.

“There’s only one solution, just like the players – get fitter,” said the New Zealand backs coach after Lewis had taken charge of a Tri Nations victory over South Africa.

And Henry was equally frustrated with last Saturday’s decisions from the Dubliner.

“I thought we struggled with the ref against Wales. We didn’t get the bounce of the ball,” he added. “That’s the way it is, the way it happens and you’ve just got to handle that and they handled it well. We’ve got to keep communicating. They (the refs) want to do a good job, we want to play well, let’s try to get on the same page.”

Meanwhile, after guiding his side to their third Grand Slam tour of the home nations in six years, Henry has immediately turned his attention to wrapping some of his biggest names in cotton wool.

While the All Blacks cannot count upon a similar appearance restriction policy employed by the IRFU with Ireland’s elite players, NZRU chiefs are banking on co-operation from the country’s Super 15 sides as New Zealand gears up for another tilt at the Holy Grail — this time on home soil.

“Our biggest challenge is that they’ve got to be reasonably sharp mentally coming into the World Cup and the Tri Nations prior. If they’re buggered it’s going to be difficult. It’s keeping them fresh, it’s keeping on communicating with them and the Super 15 coaches to see how we can do that.”