18 Jul 2010

Frustrated De Villiers calls for consistency

12:55 pm on 18 July 2010

The South African rugby team are calling for more consistency from referees after again losing to New Zealand in their Tri-Nations rematch in Wellington last night.

The Springboks coach Peter de Villiers says his side are still coming to terms with new rule interpretations and he's frustrated after sinking to the 31-17 loss as the All Blacks secured their second successive bonus-point win.

De Villiers says the only thing a coach can ask is consistency and they're not getting that with the rule interpretations which give the attacking team the advantage at the breakdown.

He says the Boks have played six games and have had six different types of interpretation of plays on the ground, and he'd love to sit down with the right people to find out how to prepare for those kinds of incidents.

He says he doesn't want to prepare his team to cheat but it seems that's the only way to go if you want to be on top of those things.

The Springboks were also hampered by their second early yellow card in successive Tests, with Danie Rossouw sin-binned by Alain Rolland in the fourth minute. Bakkies Botha was also sin-binned early last week in Auckland.

Captain John Smit says he's not surprised the All Blacks didn't also have someone sin-binned after they were being penalised continuously inside their own 22 as the Springboks hammered away at their line.

With a wry smile Smit noted that if it was his first year of playing the All Blacks he would be surprised, but this wasn't his first year.