England 34, Samoa 16: Samoa coach Ben Gardiner's reaction

Samoa coach Ben Gardiner reflects on his side's 34-16 loss to England at AMT Headingley.

Transcript

00:00Yeah, I thought that it was falling. At first I thought it was for a crusher tackle, which

00:08I thought was, you know, maybe I couldn't see it properly. But, you know, I asked Junior

00:14just then, I wanted to make sure I had the correct information, and I asked Junior why

00:18he was simmed in and he was told that he was simmed in for a high tackle. So, a high tackle

00:24that made impact, he made impact to the player with his hip, not with his arm. The contact

00:31was his hip on the opposition player's head. Now, I understand that we need to take care

00:36across the game and, you know, we're trying to remove head contact, but accidental, incidental

00:42contact that has no malice in it, I haven't seen that been simmed in in the past.

00:50The referees seem to be saying on the commentary that it was the fourth incident already in

00:54the game that he was, so maybe a sort of tying up procedure?

00:57The fourth incident with hitting someone in the head with their hip?

01:00I don't know, I don't know whether he was saying no, just the fourth such tackle, fourth

01:04such contact in the game.

01:05Every single thing in the game needs to be added up on its own value, on its own merits.

01:10Like, it's different if it's four people offside for ten metres, or it's four people lying

01:17in the ruck. Like, that's understandable, I get that, but I think that a freak incident

01:23like that, and that's what it was, it was a freak incident, like I don't know how many

01:27times in the game players make contact with a hip on purpose. So, freak incident like

01:34that, I think that Junior was, you know, he should have been given the benefit of the

01:39doubt. And the other thing that was interesting out of it is, like, you could understand that

01:44if the player from the opposition team had to go off the field, but the player basically

01:50got up after the incident and played on, no problem at all. So, it's, yeah. Now, you guys

01:56can make your own judgement about it, like the gentleman at the back did, but, yeah,

02:01I haven't seen anything like that happen in the past, and, you know, definitely impacted

02:05the game.