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Gustard: '(I'm) gutted. I'm disappointed with the referee today'

The Harlequins coaching staff at Twickenham

Paul Gustard was left “gutted” by his side’s inability to hold on to a healthy second-half lead as Harlequins drew 30-30 with Leicester at Twickenham.

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In the 12th version of the Premiership’s annual ‘Big Game’, the outcome was the same as the first edition in 2008 as Quins and the Tigers played out a draw.

This time it was the Tigers who cancelled out a 14-point deficit with the game heading into its closing quarter thanks to scores from Jordan Taufua and Telusa Veainu.

But Quins director of rugby Gustard believes that the scoreline was unjust to his side.

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He said: “For me, (I’m) gutted. I’m disappointed with the referee today and it feels more like a loss than getting two points.

“I think we were the most dominant team by far, apart from them getting up 6-3, they weren’t in the lead in the game again.

“It was difficult, obviously, with sinbinning our tighthead prop, we had to move Joe Marler across.

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“Ultimately, the only way they got back in the game was through their scrum and one lineout maul.

“We give a daft pass, intercept try, seven points. We get bullied at the scrum and they get a lineout maul and then at the end we were down to 14 men with Paul Lasike having to come off to make sure we shored up the scrum and the lineout, and we get exposed in the back-field.”

A tightly-fought first 40 saw the sides separated by a crunching Lasike score at half-time, but it was undoubtedly a game that came alive after the break as both sides slipped off the shackles.

Marcus Smith and Chris Robshaw grabbed a pair of quickfire scores after Kyle Eastmond had levelled things as the Londoners took the initiative in front of a bumper crowd of 75,626 in the capital.

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And just when the Tigers looked dead and buried, Taufua finished things off from a driving Leicester maul before Will Collier was sent to the bin for the hosts.

Veainu latched on to George Ford’s deft chip to level things, but there was to be no winner.

Tigers head coach Geordan Murphy – try-scorer in the 26-26 draw back in 2008 – heaped praise on his dominant pack for salvaging something.

“We knew that they were on a final warning scrum wise, we thought we had an edge there,” he said.

“We used that to build us a platform and at 30-30 and when they were down to 14 with seven minutes to go, I thought we’d go on and win that game, so it certainly feels like a very strange game.

“We took our opportunities when and where they came, so it was pleasing that we stayed in it and at the end of the day it’s two points.”

Press Association

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Soliloquin 28 minutes ago
Competing interests and rotated squads: What the 'player welfare summer' is really telling us

I don’t know the financial story behind the changes that were implemented, but I guess clubs started to lose money, Mourad Boudjellal won it all with Toulon, got tired and wanted to invest in football , the French national team was at its lowest with the QF humiliation in 2015 and the FFR needed to transform the model where no French talent could thrive. Interestingly enough, the JIFF rule came in during the 2009/2010 season, so before the Toulon dynasty, but it was only 40% of the players that to be from trained in French academies. But the crops came a few years later, when they passed it at the current level of 70%.

Again, I’m not a huge fan of under 18 players being scouted and signed. I’d rather have French clubs create sub-academies in French territories like Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia and other places that are culturally closer to RU and geographically closer to rugby lands. Mauvaka, Moefana, Taofifenua bros, Tolofua bros, Falatea - they all came to mainland after starting their rugby adventure back home.

They’re French, they come from economically struggling areas, and rugby can help locally, instead of lumping foreign talents.

And even though many national teams benefit from their players training and playing in France, there are cases where they could avoid trying to get them in the French national team (Tatafu).

In other cases, I feel less shame when the country doesn’t believe in the player like in Meafou’s case.

And there are players that never consider switching to the French national team like Niniashvili, Merckler or even Capuozzo, who is French and doesn’t really speak Italian.

We’ll see with Jacques Willis 🥲


But hey, it’s nothing new to Australia and NZ with PI!

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