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Wednesday, 19 February, 2003, 19:38 GMT

Laporte questions penalty count

France coach Bernard Laporte says he cannot understand why some of England's penalties were awarded in his team's 25-17 Six Nations loss at Twickenham on Saturday.

Laporte has sent a videotape of highlights of the game to New Zealand referee Paul Honiss in the hope that the official can explain his rulings.

"There are nine penalty points on our scoresheet for faults which never were," said Laporte, after England's kicker Jonny Wilkinson landed five penalties in the match.

"Olivier Magne is penalised for pushing at the end of line and it's he who has been pushed. That's three points. It's rather expensive.

" We want to understand their [referees] decisions "
Bernard Laporte

"Fabien Galthie is penalised for nothing. That's three points. Vincent Clerc is penalised for nothing, that's three.

"That's nine points too many and at the end we lost the game 25-17."

France's manager Jo Maso said they had invited Australian referee Peter Marshall, who will be in charge of their next match against Scotland on Sunday, for lunch.

"We don't want to criticise the referees. We respect them and they are part the game but we want to talk to them," he said.

"We want to understand their decisions. We want to be ready to face their reading of the rules because we have discovered a lot of discrepancies and we want them to help us."


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