Scots skipper Greig Laidlaw left frustrated by ref Romain Poite

Scotland captain Greig Laidlaw was unhappy with some of the decisions of referee Romain Poite, pictured, during the Guinness Six Nations defeat by Ireland at BT Murrayfield.
Referee Romain Poite. Pic: SNS/SRU Gary HutchisonReferee Romain Poite. Pic: SNS/SRU Gary Hutchison
Referee Romain Poite. Pic: SNS/SRU Gary Hutchison

The scrum-half claimed the official “doesn’t seem to like us”, pointing to past run-ins with the Frenchman.

Laidlaw refused to use the referee as an excuse for the 22-13 loss but was clearly irked during his post-match interview on the pitch and flagged up an incident with Ireland flanker Sean O’Brien which went against the Scots.

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Asked if Scotland’s Achilles’ heel had been the 14 handling errors they made, Laidlaw said: “It certainly doesn’t help against a good team like Ireland but there were frustrating things as well.

“Romain Poite picked us up in the middle of the field when Seany O’Brien’s reached the ball out and he’s given a knock on.

“He doesn’t seem to like us, Romain. He refereed us against South Africa as well and we don’t seem to see eye to eye.

“But we are not going to blame him. We’ll look at ourselves and give credit to Ireland.

“We are frustrated and disappointed with a lot of things in our performance. A few soft moments allowed Ireland to score, but you’ve got to give credit to them. They took their opportunities.”

Ireland captain Rory Best was pleased with his side’s response to defeat by England on the opening weekend of the Six Nations.

Best said: “We have a lot of belief in what we are doing and how good a team we are.

“That was a really tough game, and it was tough mentally in the build-up, but we asked for the physical reaction we didn’t get last week and by and large we got that.

“It wasn’t the most spectacular game of rugby that there ever was but we are very grateful for the win. We had a couple of chances and we took them. We were quite clinical when we had it.”