RUGBY/Tri-Nations: Australian coach Eddie Jones fired the opening salvo in the psychological war with opposite Graham Henry yesterday by claiming the All Blacks' tactics at the ruck were illegal and caused fights. Jones said New Zealand's tactic of clearing out the first defender at the ruck had caused retaliation from England's players when they toured last month.
The two-Test series between the world champions and New Zealand was marred by several off-the-ball scuffles and the dismissal of England lock Simon Shaw early in the second Test.
Fellow lock Danny Grewcock was later banned for six matches after being cited for stamping on New Zealand centre Daniel Carter, an incident that was unseen by match officials.
"The laws are very clear," said Jones at Wellington Airport after Australia arrived for tomorrow's opening Tri-Nations match (Sky Sports 1, 8.0a.m). "Number one defenders from each side can not be cleaned out. If they are, it leads to retaliation (and) the problems in the All Blacks' Tests against England, particularly the foul play, was because players were being taken out off the ball.
"That's something we'll certainly be asking the referee (Jonathan Kaplan) to have a close look at. If the referee doesn't deal with it, then we'll have to deal with it, and deal with it as legally as we can.
"England resorted to fisticuffs, but we're certainly not going to go down that road. But we are also not going to let our number one defenders get taken out and allow their guys to run through."
Jones said his side were not concerned about talk of revenge from New Zealand for the World Cup semi-final, in which Australia outplayed the All Blacks to win 22-10. "They've had a long time to think about that semi-final and a long time to figure out what went wrong," said Jones. "It's a different game . . . this one is about the Bledisloe Cup and the Tri-Nations."
Despite the match tomorrow between the two being the first since last November's World Cup encounter, Jones added it would not have any less significance than any other Bledisloe Cup Test between the two nations.
AUSTRALIA: Chris Latham; Clyde Rathbone, Stirling Mortlock, Matt Giteau, Lote Tuqiri; Stephen Larkham, Bill Young, Brendan Cannon, Alastair Baxter, Justin Harrison, Nathan Sharpe (capt), Radike Samo, Phil Waugh, David Lyons, Chris Whitaker. Replacements: Jeremy Paul, Matt Dunning, Daniel Vickerman, George Smith, Matt Henjak, Matthew Burke, Wendell Sailor.
NEW ZEALAND: Mils Muliaina; Doug Howlett, Tana Umaga (capt), Daniel Carter, Joe Rokocoko; Carlos Spencer, Justin Marshall; Kees Meeuws, Keven Mealamu, Carl Hayman, Chris Jack, Keith Robinson, Jono Gibbes, Richie McCaw, Xavier Rush. Replacements: Andrew Hore, Greg Somerville, Jerry Collins, Marty Holah, Byron Kelleher, Nick Evans, Sam Tuitupou.
