Irish ‘sickened’ by refereeing error

Touch judge Peter Allan was the target of Irish fury after the Scottish official confirmed to referee Jonathan Kaplan that Mike Phillips’s decisive 50th-minute try should stand.

On the contrary, the disputed score breached three laws, starting with Matthew Rees failing to use the same ball that was kicked into touch for the quick lineout. Furthermore the ball picked up by Rees had been handled by a ball boy, before the series of violations was completed by the Wales hooker clearly stepping into play when throwing to Phillips.

Ireland protested furiously to Kaplan, who acted on the information supplied by Allan, and the sense of injustice lingered long after the final whistle.

“The try was controversial. It’s bad to lose, but when you lose like that, it’s sickening. It’s heart-breaking,” said Earls, the Lions winger.

“The rules state you can’t take a quick lineout with another ball. There were six points in the game and with the conversion, the try meant seven points, so it was a big factor in the result.

“We talked about it at the time, asking what happened. When we found out, it was sickening.”

James Hook converted the try and kicked three penalties, while wing Leigh Halfpenny landed a long-range strike to make it three in a row in the tournament and give Wales a chance of winnign the competition with victory in France, allied with a defeat for England in Dublin.

Brian O’Driscoll scored a try and Ronan O’Gara booting eight points which took him past 1,000 in Test rugby.