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The British and Irish Lions star Kieran Read didn't talk to for two years following infamous drawn All Blacks series

Kieran Read of the All Blacks remonstrates with referee Romain Poite during the Test match between the New Zealand All Blacks and the British & Irish Lions at Eden Park on July 8, 2017 in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

A British and Irish Lions star at the centre of the penalty controversy that ultimately led to a drawn series against the All Blacks in 2017 has revealed former New Zealand skipper Kieran Read snubbed him for two years following the decisive third test.

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Wales hooker Ken Owens was penalised in the 78th minute of the final test of the three-match series for touching the ball in an offside position with the score locked up at 15-all.

However, after reviewing footage of the incident, the ruling was reduced to an accidental offside by referee Romain Poite, who subsequently handed the All Blacks a scrum feed rather than a potential match-winning penalty shot at goal.

Read, who was playing in his 100th test for the All Blacks, protested the decision, but his cries fell on deaf ears as the Kiwis failed to score from the ensuing set piece, with the match – and series – finishing in a stalemate.

The 127-test veteran described the draw as “heart-wrenching”, and claimed that Owens’ indiscretion “has been an offside for a long time” in the post-match press conference.

In an interview with Joe’s House of Rugby podcast, Owens said he “went into the New Zealand changing room afterwards to congratulate Kieran Read on his 100th cap and he wouldn’t really speak to me”.

“To be fair, he did apologise after the third place play-off at the [2019] World Cup. There were obviously emotions running high at the time.”

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The 33-year-old, who came on as a replacement hooker for England star Jamie George with 11 minutes remaining in the clash at Eden Park, expressed his relief at Poite’s change of heart.

“Just before it happened, I was going ‘Right boys, exit now, let’s restart, get the ball back down the field, switch on’ and all the rest of it,” he told Joe’s House of Rugby.

“Basically, don’t f*** up and then I f***** up!

“I went straight to Jonathan Davies, who is one of my best mates, and I said I am going to have to move to Trellech – which is about 17 miles out of Carmarthen, the most rural part of the county – and like hide away for the rest of my life.”

While he hasn’t had to adopt the life of a hermit in the years since the incident, Owens said that referee Poite hasn’t forgotten that match in Auckland three years ago.

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“When Romain Poite refs me now, he does drop in a little quip every now and again, with ‘Stay onside this time, Ken’ or something like that!”

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

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