Joe Schmidt criticises England antics before Twickenham Test

England ran out comfortable 25-7 winners of the much-hyped game on the back of strong performances by Ben Earl and Alexander Mitchell.

However, Schmidt believes the Three Lions may have earned themselves a bit of an edge by using a bit of gamesmanship in their pre-match meeting with referee Nika Amashukeli.

He alleges his counterpart, England head coach Steve Borthwick, went into the meeting armed with a raft of evidence highlighting the Wallabies' infringements at the breakdown during the Rugby Championship.

"It's a bit of gamesmanship," Schmidt said, according to the BBC, before defending his team's record in that area of the pitch.

"We've had, up until today, 1,256 attacking rucks. There's two players at least in each of those. That's 2,500 ruck entries.

"We had one yellow card. No one has left the field injured as a result of our clean-outs. We haven't ever been excessively penalised for side entry.

"So I always find those things disappointing, but not distracting."

Amashukeli penalised both Harry Wilson and Taniela Tupou for breakdown infringements within the first five minutes of the match.

However, Schmidt does not believe England's antics had any impact on the referee's decisions.

"No, I don't think so," he said when asked if England's gamesmanship influenced Amashukeli.

"We'd have a fair bit of confidence in the referee. I think the referee is a very experienced referee and he just got on and refereed the game.

"We don't want to make excuses, England were very, very good - the intensity of their aerial chase, the intensity of their breakdown, and their ball carry and the bench that they brought on - six British and Irish Lions - that's strength in depth."

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