Outrage as stomping claim turned down

Wellington coach Dave Rennie cannot believe a complaint against Canterbury captain Todd Blackadder for stomping on Tana Umaga has been thrown out.

Wellington say they have compelling video evidence of Blackadder stomping on Umaga in the 49th minute of Saturday's Ranfurly Shield match in Christchurch.

They complained yesterday about that incident and about the one in the 62nd minute when halfback Jason Spice was tackled early and high by opposite Justin Marshall.

Citing commissioner Mike O'Leary considered both complaints, but found there was no evidence to uphold them.

However, O'Leary has charged Wellington hooker Shane Carter for taking flanker Richard McCaw out at a ruck. He will appear tomorrow.

The decisions stunned Rennie.

"I'm not too concerned about the Marshall one because that would have only been a penalty during the game anyway," Rennie said.

"But Tana said he was stomped on by Blackadder and the video evidence supports that. The fact they [the New Zealand Rugby Football Union] have ignored it but will still take a case against Shane Carter suggests some inconsistency.

"It's going to sound like I'm whinging because we lost, but I'm disappointed they decided Shane's action warranted further investigation but Blackadder's were not viewed in the same light."

Yesterday's events continue the furore over referee Steve Walsh's performance in Canterbury's come-from-behind win, with the telephone lines running hot at the New Zealand and Wellington unions with complaints.

Rennie and assistant coach Graham Mourie were restrained in what they would say about Walsh's performance.

"We have to live with these guys," Mourie said. "We had Paul Honiss two weeks ago and we've got him again this week [against Auckland at Eden Park].

"What I would say is that I hope the public and media criticism of Walsh is not held against us, because we haven't said anything. We're not prepared to criticise the refs because it's not our job.

"But our guys are trying to work within the rules and they've done nothing different to what Canterbury did."

That view was strongly supported by an examination of a video of the game on Wellington's computer video analysis system - technology that is available to the referee but which they do not yet use.

The video evidence shows glaring examples of Canterbury players hitting rucks from the side, taking Wellington players out without the ball and holding players back, usually in full view of Walsh, who let it go unpenalised.

Walsh awarded 24 penalties against Wellington and most of them were for such fouls. He penalised Canterbury twice in each half.

- NZPA