Joe Schmidt: Referees will be ‘very focused’ after dressing down

Joe Schmidt is expecting an upturn in refereeing standards and consistency following the officials’ very public dressing down by World Rugby this week.

The governing body responded to criticisms of referring inconsistency over the opening weekend of the 2019 Rugby World Cup and a failure to follow through on its promises of a clampdown on high tackles at the tournament by saying the performances of their elite officials “were not consistently of the standards set by World Rugby and themselves”.

Ireland have Angus Gardner in charge of their game against Japan tomorrow with the Australian referee under fire last weekend for perceived mistakes during last Saturday’s France-Argentina game.

Schmidt referenced Gardner’s handling of last season’s Six Nations finale against Wales in Cardiff when he felt Ireland did not get a fair shake of the dice, while there was also an admission of dissatisfaction that his players came out on the wrong side of the penalty count, 7-6, in last Sunday’s win over Scotland, when Wayne Barnes was the man in the middle.

“It was annoying and surprising considering that a lot of what we did we felt we were kind of on top in that game,” the Ireland boss said of last week’s game.

“Obviously last time we had Angus, it wasn’t great for us. We didn’t play particularly well but we didn’t feel we got a lot of the rub of the green from Angus either.

“I think if you look back at the scrum we actually went straight through the middle of the Welsh scrum to get a turnover ball very early in the game and then when they ran around the corner we get no receipt (of penalties) from that and they were given penalty rewards, which was incredibly frustrating.”

Yet Schmidt believes World Rugby’s statement this week will light a fire under the match officials in Japan. “The officials are going to be as nailed on as they possibly can be and Angus is no different from any other official this weekend. They’re going to be looking to be as accurate as they possibly can be, and I think that’s the whole team of four. I don’t think you ever end up talking about a ref.

“We saw a couple of citings from the (Samoa v Russia) game in our pool on Tuesday evening where the officials, as a team, decided they were yellow cards and then they were cited later as red cards. So nobody is really operating in isolation now.

“The referee is very much reliant on his ARs and his TMOs to be a team of four. They’ve been given a stir up from World Rugby and I know when players that I work with get a stir up, they come out and they’re very focused the next outing.

“So we’d have confidence that the officials are going to be good this weekend across the board.”

Schmidt also disputed an assessment by Japan prop Yusuke Kizi that Ireland’s veteran loosehead Cian Healy scrummaged illegally by taking a step sideways on engagement with opposition front rows. “It’s hard to step out when you’ve got your right shoulder out and you’re nice and square,” said the Ireland boss.

“I think we’ll be one of the least penalised scrums in international rugby. I think we do our very best to scrum square. We don’t step left.”

Japan head coach Jamie Joseph agreed with his young prop while also offering some mitigation.

“I think, first thing, Kizu is a young man, probably his first media experience, so that would be the first thing around Kizusan.

“We’re coming up against a very strong scrum; yes, at times they are illegal, but at all times they are a very strong scrum.

“We know that’s a difficult part of the game, but we’ve really improved our scrum and lineout recently. And it’s an area we’ve been focusing on all week.”