Was the ref as bad as we thought ? Was the Luke sin-bin unwarranted ? Was the forward pass glaringly obvious?

Ref wasn’t great, but you're not doing yourselves any favours if you blame him for the defeat.

The sin-bin was reasonable, although half the time you'd probably get away without a card. Luke deliberately blocked him, and didn’t do a great job of hiding the intent, which made the decision more likely.

The forward pass was pretty obvious in real-time, and glaringly obvious in replay, but it’s a lot easier to spot from a TV camera angle than on the ground. I think plenty of refs would have missed that, given the pace of play – you see lots of similar short & forward passes in the S14 that don’t get called. It’s a sickener to lose to a try like that, but not sure what else to do unless you want to extent use of TV replays.

Refereeing the breakdown – thought it was OK, it’s hardly a surprise that a NH ref is a bit stricter in this area than a SH one might be. Don’t remember him being inconsistent, which is the main thing.

Off-side – France did seem to be off-side a lot, but I don’t think you can complain unless he was pinging the other team for doing the same, which he didn’t. France took advantage of the ref better than NZ did in this regard (although the fact you boys had the ball for most of the game gave them plenty more chance to do this)

Was our injury toll ridiculous and way above what is normally expected in a one game of rugby ?

Definitely on the high side, but not exactly ridiculous. You don’t see that level of injuries every game, but once in while you will – Wales against Aus springs to mind (although that was partially Mortlock-induced rather than unlucky). Mitigation is that Betsen also went, and Carter was carrying an injury into the game, so Henry was taking a calculated risk.

Were we unlucky or just outplayed ?

Both. No doubt you were unlucky in a number of areas. But France's intensity, especially the defence in the second half was spectacular. Also a special mention for the haka face-off, I knew we were in for a game after that.