Wales' Aaron Shingler, centre, goes to run between England's Jonathan Joseph, left and England's Joe Launchbury during the Six Nations international rugby union match. Photo / AP
Wales' Aaron Shingler, centre, goes to run between England's Jonathan Joseph, left and England's Joe Launchbury during the Six Nations international rugby union match. Photo / AP
Wales will seek clarification from World Rugby's officiating department this week over why a 'try' for Gareth Anscombe was not awarded during the first half of their 12-6 defeat by England at Twickenham.
Warren Gatland criticised a "bad call" from fellow New Zealander and television match official Glenn Newman, who adjudged that England winger Anthony Watson touched the ball down ahead of Anscombe. As well as the decision itself, he will query the communication between Newman and referee Jérôme Garcès that led to it.
Gatland's opinion will form part of the officials' routine match review, a detailed process that is managed by World Rugby's high performance match official manager Alain Rolland with the support of Anthony Buchanan, chair of the match official select committee. These comprise of video analysis, self-appraisal, feedback from both coaching teams and the assessment of a World Rugby performance reviewer.
Although Newman's commitments for the 2018 Six Nations are now over, Garcès is still scheduled to stand as an assistant referee for England's visit to Murrayfield on February 24 and to oversee Wales's home match against Italy on March 11. The Frenchman finishes his tournament as a touch-judge for Italy's meeting with Scotland.
Still, given Test match appointments take past performances into account, both Garcès and Newman could be overlooked for future assignments following their part in Saturday's incident.
"[Newman] just made a bad call, didn't he," said Gatland after the final whistle. "It will be interesting to chat to him to see what his explanation is of it. I don't know anyone who has said they agree with the decision."
Garcès asked Newman "try or no try" after Watson and Anscombe had dived towards a loose ball in England's in-goal area in the 24th minute. After studying replays, and although television pictures seemed to indicate that Anscombe had scored under law 21.1b, Newman responded: "The ball has not been clearly grounded. The first grounding was by England, therefore it is a scrum."
Wales' Gareth Anscombe, is brought down by England's Alec Hepburn, centre and England's Sam Underhill, left, during the Six Nations international rugby union match. Photo / AP
Anscombe himself, who enjoyed a largely assured game and troubled England later on after moving from full-back to fly-half, refused to use the setback as an excuse and revealed that Wales' players had not mentioned it during the break. However, the 26 year-old did admit that he thought the try should have been given.
"I felt some pressure of the ball on the ground," he said. "I thought that I got it down but the decision didn't go our way. That was disappointing because it potentially would have changed the momentum, but ultimately it was still early on in the game and we had a lot of chances to fix it.
"The TMOs don't always get it right, which is frustrating - but you can't do much about that. We were confident once we saw the first replay and started jogging back but [I don't know] whether there was a bit of a breakdown, there might have been.
"We trust the TMO, you've just got to back the individual to use the replays and communicate well with the touch judges and the ref, then hopefully they get the majority of them right."
Despite seeing his team's hopes of a Grand Slam slip away, Gatland praised Wales' resilience as he looked ahead with confidence to another away fixture against Ireland in a fortnight.
"The changing room was not down at all," he explained. "We know ourselves that we conceded a turnover try early on in the game. We felt there was a try disallowed and we kept England scoreless in the second-half. We weren't brilliant in the air, so there are things for us to work on.
"We were pleased with how strong we finished the game. And considering we still think we are 20-25 per cent off being as fit and as sharp as we will be by the time the World Cup comes round and we spend more time together, we are in a pretty good place."
Just as they did two years ago at the same venue, Wales ended a frenetic match by spreading the ball wide in search of a winning try. Anscombe, who was at the heart of that attacking effort, said that impressive fitness levels and a defiant finish could provide encouragement.
"We train hard and I expect so do England and everyone else," he added. "You've just got to try and get off the floor. Both teams were absolutely knackered. In the last five minutes we were throwing the ball around and both teams were pretty stuffed.
"I wouldn't say we are fitter than anyone else but we work extremely hard and there is a real will to get up for each other in this team. That's something that we can keep building on and if we play with that intensity then we can get on top of most teams."
