In an ironic appeal to defend match officials, head coach of France Fabien Galthie has taken a jab at Springboks manager Rassie Erasmus for using social media to condemn referees.

Galthie discussed France’s Six Nations campaign with French media this week. Les Bleus, who had won three of their five games, drawn one, and lost one, came in second overall, behind Ireland.

Losing the quarter-final to the Springboks

Once again, the topic of France’s crushing Rugby World Cup quarterfinal loss to South Africa came up, and the head coach of France felt that referee Ben O’Keeffe had a hand in the result.

Galthie clarified that he recently spoke with O’Keeffe at World Rugby’s Shape of the Game event, during which the New Zealander expressed dissatisfaction with his performance in the quarterfinal.

“In this match, I say that my players were strongly impacted by questionable, very questionable decisions,” Galthie said of the 29-28 defeat to the Springboks.

“The goal is to talk about it rationally, coldly, to change the way we understand our sport.

“We lost this match for rugby reasons but also for refereeing decisions. I talked about it with [O’Keeffe] who confided things to me. I then spoke with [the ref] in a very fair manner, one-on-one, and he himself told me that he was not at all satisfied with his performance.”

 

Swipe at Rassie Erasmus

During his press conference, Galthie did, however, also manage to poke fun at Erasmus by bringing up a post from 2022 that the Springboks’ manager, now known as X, made on Twitter.

In 2022, World Rugby suspended Erasmus for two games following a sequence of videos that appeared to be critical to referee Wayne Barnes. That followed a two-month suspension in 2021 for his performance during the British and Irish Lions series, which was criticised in a video that was “leaked.”

“We particularly mentioned the behaviour of the coaches,” Galthie continued in reference to the Shape of the Game forum. “Once again, I insisted on our role as educators. We must behave with respect.

“I expressed my incomprehension about other coaches who permit themselves to doubt judgement calls, raise scandals, and post tweets. It’s forbidden for me, he said, obviously taking a jab at Erasmus.

“I never will question a referee’s decision directly.”

Galthie doesn’t even appear to know that he is criticising officials and referees during press conferences, but he seems to think it’s perfectly acceptable to do so. However, you shouldn’t post about it on social media.

This week, World Rugby has not answered his remarks.