All Blacks: Big guns support Hansen's TV fears

Captain Richie McCaw poses with the trophy after the QBE International match between England and New Zealand at Twickenham Stadium in London. Photo / Getty Images

McCaw and Read echo concerns on directors’ influence via replays.

The All Blacks have begun their United Kingdom tour with a 24-21 victory over England, but lock Brodie Retallick is a casualty and so is Steve Hansen's sense of humour following more controversy over how big-screen replays at grounds are influencing the decisions of referees.

Replacement first-five Beauden Barrett was lining up a conversion to Charlie Faumuina's try which had put the All Blacks 24-14 ahead with eight minutes remaining when referee Nigel Owens was alerted to TV footage of the try by a partisan crowd which felt the prop had lost the ball. Despite awarding the try, Owens told the television match official to check his decision.

The try stood, but Barrett missed the relatively easy conversion.

Coach Steve Hansen was annoyed at the decision and called the trend concerning.

The ability of a television director to play a part in the game mirrored a crucial decision in the All Blacks' defeat to the Springboks in Johannesburg last month.

The All Blacks appeared set to hang on for an unlikely victory, until constant replays alerted referee Wayne Barnes to a high tackle by Liam Messam on Springboks replacement flanker Schalk Burger, with Pat Lambie kicking the penalty from 55m to hand his side a 27-25 win.

"My biggest concern is not the TMO or the refs, certainly not publicly anyway," Hansen said. "My biggest concern is that TV directors are starting to have an influence on the game.

"If something goes wrong we might see a replay 10 times. The referee hasn't seen it, the touch judge hasn't seen it, the TMO hasn't seen it. We need to bring in a challenge so if a player or a coach has seen it he can challenge it but if they don't see it we don't need a TV producer to replay something 100 times. That's not in the character or spirit of the game. Referees are like players, they will make mistakes and sometimes that will cost you the game but you've got to live with that.

"TV producers, they're starting to annoy me." Hansen's worries are shared by two leaders in the team.

Skipper Richie McCaw said: "You've just got to hope the guy out in the middle isn't influenced by the crowd noise. As Steve said, perhaps that cost us the game in South Africa a few weeks ago. Once we've seen it obviously the right decision was made but it could easily have not been."

Kieran Read said: "There's only one reason why they put the replay on the big screen and that was to make sure the ref saw it."

The crowd were also vocal about the grounding of Aaron Cruden's first-half try which levelled the score at 5-5, but Owens didn't feel the need to double-check that decision.

The All Blacks, who looked the more rusty of the two teams despite England not having played a test since June, did well to recover from the home team's early onslaught sparked by a try from left wing Johnny May, who sliced through the defence.

Hansen's men also showed good composure to cope with the sinbinning of hooker Dane Coles in the second half, with halfback Aaron Smith taking over lineout throwing duties.

"To be as close as we were at halftime was probably a credit to our fortitude and ability to hang in there and in the second half I thought we controlled the game pretty good," Hansen said.

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