DECLAN KIDNEY, inset, refused to hide behind the refereeing error that proved critical to his team’s downfall in Cardiff. “I’m fully aware of the rules and of course, I’m extremely frustrated by what happened. I will leave it at that. As for the rest of the game, I thought Wales had a good kicking game and put us under pressure by isolating our full-back and wings. They won that battle, I have to admit that.”
Captain Brian O’Driscoll said: “I didn’t see the incident myself, but when you have half your team telling you that someone had touched the ball and it shouldn’t have been a try, you believe them. I tried to relay that to Jonathan Kaplan but he was having none of it. It is extremely frustrating when a simple error like that, can have such a huge bearing on the game.
“There were a lot of guys around the referee after it happened and he was pushing them away. I went up to him and said can I speak to you because I’m the captain. However, he had to speak with the touch judge first and before I could say anything, the try had been awarded.
“It was a couple of minutes before I could say anything to him again. I said that the television replays had shown that it was clearly wrong, but he just shrugged it off.”
In the BBC studio, former Ireland captain Keith Wood, observed: “The Irish forwards saw where the ball had gone into touch and knew that a quick throw could not be taken — you could see them moving into position for the lineout. And then you could see the anger on their faces when the try was awarded. We want common sense. Is it really asking too much that the ref should just check with the television match official that everything was ok?”