Jaco Peyper's refereeing performance remains one of the biggest talking points the day after Ireland's 21-9 loss to the All Blacs at the Aviva yesterday. Irish fans seem split as to whether Peyper made the match patently dangerous with his officiating or if Ireland was sheepishly naive for failing to employ high tackling.
The postmatch analysis show on Sky Sport New Zealand will be interesting viewing for Irish fans because the Kiwi panel came away from that match with completely different view of Peyper's officiating and the place of the high tackle in rugby union. The penalty count was remarkably one-sided (14-4).
Peyper's performance was first mentioned as one of the game's big talking points, after the return of Retallick and Whitelock.
...And [our final talking point is] the Irish whinging about the referee all day.
There was a lot of chat. There was a lot of chat from the crowd. I mean, it's an Irish crowd. It's partisan, so you expect that. Was he influenced by the crowd, by the Irish players there today?
We've known for a long time that statistically referees are influenced by home crowds. That's a truth. That's a fact. And it certainly happened today. And they were loud. But hey, the rub of the green went our way as well with the Barrett try. It's one of those things, refereeing, it's never going to be perfect. We're probably boring everybody talking about it now.
When Cane's tackle that concussed Henshaw was brought up, the panel was steadfast that Cane had done nothing wrong and Northern Hemisphere squeamishishness was endangering rugby.
If we're going to sanitise the game so much that a guy can't make a spot tackle, then I think we're in big trouble. And I know Northern Hemisphere fans are hot on this. They don't like anything that's above the chest. But Sam Cane is trying to dominate the game. He's probably the best dominant tackler in the game of footie [rugby union]. You cannot penalise that.
In terms of the defensive system, he's just covering his mate's back.
They don't argue Fekitoa's yellow and they do admit that Peyper lost control of the game.
You can watch the entire 21 minute post-match recap below (from the 1.30 mark), which featured many unfortunate Guinness references and perhaps the worst Jaco Peyper joke ever made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKrMWWFr0rU
