Michael Cheika’s midweek warning that it’s “us versus everyone” at the Rugby World Cup returned to haunt him as the Wallabies were left stewing over some baffling officiating in their 29-25 loss to Wales.
A captivating fightback from 18 points down at Tokyo Stadium on Sunday fell painfully short and will probably leave Australia with a wickedly difficult play-off path.
Cheika walked out on a television interview minutes after fulltime and the passionate coach had barely calmed down by the press conference, where he conceded he struggles to grasp rugby’s latest regulations.
He described himself as “embarrassed” as a former player that the rules around collisions had both softened and also become so unnecessarily complicated.
Cheika also accused referees and TMOs of sucking the life from rugby with drawn-out replays of incidents.
Match officials are being “spooked” by World Rugby bosses, Cheika said, adding the sport is the big loser from head-high tackles being placed inside a black and white sanctioning framework.
He said players were becoming confused and he had joined them since watching games through the first two weeks of the tournament.
He was stunned to learn England back Piers Francis escaped any punishment for his apparent head-high tackle, while four other players in Japan have copped three-week bans, including Wallabies winger Reece Hodge.
“Oh look, I don’t know every directive, there have been a few of them come out,” Cheika said.
“I don’t know any more. I don’t know the rules any more, honestly.”
Cheika queried why Australia’s seemingly dominant scrum was penalised multiple times by French referee Romain Poite.
However, his chief concern was the momentum-swinging penalty against Samu Kerevi for bumping off tackler Rhys Patchell, who was upright.
Former Wallabies and Fox Sports commentator Phil Kearns slammed the Kerevi ruling and was just as adamant that Wales’ halfback Gareth Davies should have had his converted try on the stroke of halfime ruled out.
Davies magically intercepted Will Genia’s pass from a ruck and dashed 60m but Kearns said replays showed he was clearly offside
“It was just embarrassing that the referee hasn’t gone back to look how far, he’s (Davies) even 2m in front of his own defensive line that are moving up, that’s an embarrassment,” Kearns said.
Patchell and Wales coach Warren Gatland were unsurprisingly not willing to comment on some of the contentious calls.
Instead, they were happy to soak up their second World Cup win over Australia in seven meetings. The other was in the bronze medal playoff of the inaugural 1987 event.