Argentina coach Felipe Contepomi takes aim at rugby rules ‘grey area’ after 28-26 win over Wallabies

Usually it’s the losing coach bemoaning the officiating, but a fed up Contempomi — who raised concerns after last week’s loss to Australia in Townsville, turned up the heat following his side’s 28-26 victory at Allianz Stadium.

“I think rugby is too grey, it’s too grey in terms of law, interpretations,” Contepomi said.

“It has to be more black and white so that there’s no more — and I respect the human error, but when you have too many images and you have TMO coming, when a guy from the top makes the error with all the cameras and everything, it’s like, if you’re going to use the TMO and come in, come out, he needs to be consistent.

“Unfortunately, he can still make errors, but he can’t be – consistency, that’s the word.”

Ridley awarded Argentina 14 penalties and the Wallabies seven, much to the irritation of local fans.

But Contepomi could feel rightly aggrieved after Englishman Ridley awarded a late try to Filipo Daugunu, who received a clear forward pass from Andrew Kellaway.

The television match official, New Zealander Glenn Newman, looked at several replays and still allowed the try.

“I’m frustrated that no one saw that forward pass, the TMO didn’t see it,” Contepomi said.

“I’m frustrated on consistency. Same action in the first half, it’s play on or similar … here, penalty.

“It’s unbelievable that last game there were five penalties for off-side for Argentina, with four advantage penalties, none for Australia.

“This game, first two minutes, already a penalty for Australia. That’s not the solution. It’s to be consistent throughout the game.”

Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt would have had his own frustrations with the refereeing, but chose a more diplomatic stance.

“I’m frustrated with what we didn’t get right,” Schmidt said.

“I think as soon as you start getting distracted by things you don’t control, I think there’s a risk.

“We’ll go through the channels and there’s decisions that right toward the end there when we almost get ourselves back into the game, with a little bit more time to spare, where we’re frustrated but it’s our fault we’re in that position in the game to a large degree.

“If we can stay focused on what we need to do and leave the match officials to focus on what they need to do, I think it’s probably the best course of action.”

Australian captain Harry Wilson had numerous encounters with 32-year-old Ridley, who was in charge of just his 10th Test.

“Obviously we gave away too many penalties and some I wanted to have another look at, but didn’t really get too much opportunity there,” Wilson said.

“We’ve got to be better.”

Schmidt said he would continue conversations with James O’Connor – who sparked a late comeback yet again – about potentially remaining with the squad for the coming Bledisloe Cup Tests.

O’Connor was due to join new English club Leicester after this match, but after his impressive display off the bench and the mixed starting debut of Tane Edmed, Schmidt will need to consider the veteran for the campaign.

It’s expected Tom Lynagh and Ben Donaldson will both be fit for the All Blacks.