Who is Wales vs England rugby referee Pascal Gauzere and what has he said about the Six Nations match?
WALES secured the Triple Crown with a crushing win over England in Six Nations on Saturday.
However, England felt aggrieved early in the match when an extremely dubious try was awarded by referee Pascal Gauzere.
Who is Pascal Gauzere?
Pascal Gauzere was born in Montfort-en-Chalosse in the Southwest of France in 1977.
He has been refereeing at the highest level of club rugby since 2006 and made his Six Nations debut in 2011 when he took charge of Scotland vs Ireland.
Gauzere had already caused controversy in a previous Wales vs England referee when he took charge of a 2019 World Cup warm-up.
On that day the Welsh rose to World number one while England head coach Eddie Jones complained to World Rugby about his performance.
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What happened in Wales vs England?
Pascal Gauzere caused huge controversy when he awarded Josh Adams’ opening try for Wales against England.
After awarding Wales a quick penalty, Gauzere was heard ordering England captain Owen Farrell to talk to his team.
However seconds later while Farrell was in discussions with the England side, Dan Biggar chipped a penalty wide for Josh Adams to score.
And after the try was awarded, he was heard telling Farrell that he had given him time to talk to his team.
BBC pundits Martin Johnson, Jeremy Guscott and Welshman Sam Warburton were unanimous that Gauzere had made the wrong decision in awarding the try.
There was also some controversy over Wales second try when the officials chose not to signal for a knock-on.
Louis Rees-Zammit knocked the ball forward with his hand but onto his leg, from which it went backwards, before Liam Williams touched down.
What did Pascal Gauzere say about the decisions?
According to Midi Olympique, Gauzere has admitted that he was wrong to award both of Wales’ opening two tries.
World Rugby’s head of match officials Joel Jutge told the French rugby paper: “I think we have to be transparent and rather than let things get worse, we should say what we think.
“In that match, there were two unfortunate incidents that weren’t simple to manage.
“Pascal Gauzere admitted as much himself on the phone to me on Sunday morning.
“From the time when the referee says ‘time on’, the game can resume,
“But it was down to him to ensure that England had had enough time to reorganise themselves because he was the one who’d asked the captain to address his players.”
And Jutge said of the second try: “The Wales winger did not have the ball under control and it fell forwards on to his thigh.
“This notion of losing control doesn’t appear in the current laws, which is why the situation lends itself to confusion.
“The reality is that if he’d blown up for a knock-on for that, nobody would’ve had an issue with it.”
“This is one of the strange effects of TMO, as there’s sometimes a tendency to look at too many things under the microscope.
“You have to strike the right balance and a simple decision involving common sense would have sufficed in this case.
“There was a loss of control and the ball went forwards, so it was a knock-on.
“Pascal watched it back on Sunday morning and he’s the first person to admit that.
“This doesn’t take anything away from the fact that he remains an excellent international referee.”