NZRU dismisses O'Sullivan claims

The New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) has rejected claims from Eddie O’Sullivan that he was denied access to match footage after Saturday’s 27-17 defeat to the All Blacks at Eden Park.

O’Sullivan was angered at not being allowed to quickly review footage of an incident involving injured Ireland winger Shane Horgan and insisted citing commissioner Peter Brown was also denied access to the video.

O'Sullivan claimed the snub came after O'Sullivan’s refusal to allow television cameras into the dressing room.

“This is a very unacceptable situation. It seems we’ve been punished because we refused to let a camera into our changing room, which is against all our principles,” explained O’Sullivan.

“They’re entertainment issues and I see where they’re coming from but this is a citing issue and a player got injured.

“The citing commissioner has attempted to get the video footage and he’s been refused. We’re in a very unusual situation, I’ve never seen this before.”

NZRU chief executive Chris Moller hit out at O’Sullivan and insisted a tape had been made available.

“Certainly what we were told was that the NZRU had not provided the tape, which is incorrect,” he said.

“It is certainly unrelated to the issue of the judicial tape. They’re quite separate issues and to bring those together, frankly, would seem an effort to fudge what really happened.”