Nigel Owens responds to Rassie Erasmus' tweets

Former test referee Nigel Owens has commented on Rassie Erasmus' Twitter activity following South Africa's loss to France.

After South Africa's loss to France in the Autumn Nations Series, Springbok director of rugby Rassie Erasmus has been busy on Twitter posting seven clips from the match.

In the videos, Erasmus questions the decisions made by Wayne Barnes, who was taking charge of a record 101st test match. 

The World Cup-winning coach's actions have been heavily criticised with one publication going as far as comparing him to former US president Donald Trump.

Nigel Owens, who held the record for most test matches as a referee (100) until Barnes officiated France v South Africa, has now weighed in on the developments on The Telegraph’s Rugby Podcast.

Owens was initially shocked by the tweets and suspected that it could be a fake profile. 

“I saw these [videos] come up and I was thinking ‘is this his genuine profile? Is he doing this?’” Owens said.

“To me, we don’t need that in the game and I’d have thought he’d have learned his lesson by now, if it is him doing this. There’s a procedure in place.”

Owens referring to Erasmus' ban after for his video on the first British and Irish Lions test last year. 

“If you’re not happy about decisions, or you have questions about decisions – as every coach would have – referees can’t get everything right, there is a process to go through.

“You send your timeline to the referee manager, which would be Joel Jutge at World Rugby, and they would look at that with the referee.

“Then they would reply to the coach and say: ‘Yeah, this could have been penalised’ or ‘the referee is correct here’.

“Or, like a lot of things in rugby, it’s: ‘This is a grey one. This is what the referee feels and it’s his interpretation of it [but] it could well have gone the other way’. That’s the nature of the game.” Owens explained.

The former test referee added that Erasmus' actions aren't aligned with the values of rugby and encouraged Erasmus to go through the proper channels.

“Once you start putting things out there on social media questioning decisions, that’s not what this game is about, I don’t think. I don’t think this it’s right and I don’t like it.

“Go through the proper channels, and as long as everyone is open and honest and transparent… that is the way forward, not [to do it] on social media.”