All Blacks: Scrum farce at the San Siro

The All Blacks wait for referee Stuart Dickinson before packing down against Italy yesterday. Photo / Getty Images

Great occasion. Great stadium. Shame about the rugby and the refereeing.

It was frustration all round at the magnificent San Siro, jam-packed with 80,000-plus fans, as both coaches took aim at Australian referee Stuart Dickinson after the All Blacks' 20-6 test win over Italy yesterday.

All Blacks boss Graham Henry demanded more clarity in the "grey" scrum laws after Italian prop Martin Castrogiovanni's demolition job on Wyatt Crockett, while Italy's Nick Mallett felt his side deserved a late penalty try and questioned the tourists' tactics to defuse their rolling mauls.

Five penalties from Luke McAlister - who had 56 per cent goalkicking success - and a try by hooker Corey Flynn from one of few multi-phase moves was enough for a second-string All Blacks.

It was the All Blacks' sixth consecutive Northern Hemisphere test where they hadn't conceded a try, but that was one of few bright spots in a stop-start contest amid a cacophony of noise - from the crowd and Dickinson's whistle.

The alarming dominance of the Italian scrum prompted Henry to claim the scrum rulings were getting worse, and demanded clarity from the International Rugby Board.

The feeling in the All Blacks camp was that Castrogiovanni was boring in, unpunished, and captain Rodney So'oialo said Dickinson had a "totally different view" to his protests.

"You get guys like Wyatt Crockett coming off the field totally frustrated," Henry said.

"He spends hours, weeks, years developing as a quality front row forward, and coming off frustrated because it's not the game he's used to playing in the front row.

"I'm talking about everything: binding, direction, everything. It's spoiling the game as a spectacle. The last five minutes was a farce."

Italy camped on the All Blacks' line near the end as Dickinson reset endless scrums, awarded penalties and sin-binned prop Neemia Tialata.

With the crowd at fever pitch and whistling for a penalty try, it was a flat ending to a kick-and-whistle-dominated test and had Mallett seeing red. "The All Blacks are a very good team but we had them today, we were better than them in the set scrums.

"We had an opportunity to finish with a try and I think we would have scored a pushover try had there not been penalties," he said.

"To not get seven points at the end was disappointing because I thought my forwards deserved it."

Mallett also took umbrage at Henry's comments. "There were a couple of occasions in the driving mauls where, if we're going to talk about grey areas, there were lots of grey areas there."

The All Blacks never looked in danger of their first defeat in 12 tests against Italy, but with 12 changes from the win over Wales and debutants Mike Delany, Tamati Ellison and Ben Smith, they struggled for any flow.

With the pack under pressure, halfback Andy Ellis battled to provide good service, while Delany showed nice touches but couldn't impose himself on the test as Stephen Donald replaced him with 15 minutes left.

McAlister was solid at No 12 while Smith recovered from a horror start to show some class with few chances.

Italy's forwards were outstanding, with captain Sergio Parisse leading the way, but they hardly threatened the All Blacks line in the backs.

The team now fly to London where England await at Twickenham next weekend after scraping past Argentina, with most of the All Blacks' frontliners likely to return.

- NZPA