Scotland's Alasdair Dickinson criticises referee after Italy loss

Scotland prop Alasdair Dickinson has criticised George Clancy following the Irish referee's performance in Saturday's Six Nations game at Murrayfield.

Scotland suffered a third defeat in this year's Six Nations after being beaten 22-19 by Italy - and face the possibility of a fourth wooden spoon in 11 years.

But, while Dickinson said Scotland "should have stopped" the driving mauls Italy used to devastating effect as they came back to win with a late penalty try, the Edinburgh forward insisted Clancy did nothing to help the home side at the scrum.

The set-piece duel was held up time and again in the first half as Clancy lectured both sides on their engage method before finally scolding the front-rowers for showing a "terrible attitude".

But Dickinson said he had no idea what the referee's issue was.

"I think he was making a mountain out of a molehill at times. When he let us scrum, we scrummed really well and got penalties," he said. "It was just frustrating that it seemed to take an age to set up.

"The scrum is so heavily regulated now, but it seems like front-rows don't know anything about scrummaging any more - and refs do. I don't know many prop refs to be honest.

"It can be a lottery at times, but what can you do? As players we are not allowed to talk to the ref about what we can do to solve it or what issue he sees. Unfortunately, in rugby you can't talk to refs or you get sent to the bad boys' corner.

"It's frustrating because the last two games we have scrummaged really well. And at times on Saturday we did."

The Scots' defeat to Italy follows a 15-8 loss to France in Paris and a 26-23 reverse at home to Wales.

Dickinson said: "We're disappointed because we didn't take the strides we needed to after the first two games.

"But I don't think we are the worst team in this Six Nations. We pushed France and we pushed Wales. Both those games could have gone either way. It was the same with Saturday's game.

"The reality of the situation is that rugby is a minority sport in this country, but we're not going to let that hold us back.

"Rugby is huge in France and it's the national sport of Wales and yet, when we played them we could have - and should have - won those games.

"So we're doing pretty well for minnows, if you look at it like that."