 Dallaglio missed the Test series due to injury |
Lawrence Dallaglio insists he would not have let Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu get away with their spear tackle on Lions captain Brian O'Driscoll. "He was taken out by a late challenge," said Dallaglio, who missed the Tests against New Zealand due to injury.
"To be honest it wasn't sorted out by the officials.
"If I had been there, I have to say the first thing I would have done is to make sure that we sorted those two out straight away."
The incident occurred inside the first two minutes of the first Test against the All Blacks and ended O'Driscoll's tour.
Dallaglio did not even make the Test series after suffering a serious knee injury in the first game of the tour.
He said head coach Sir Clive Woodward had made mistakes on the tour, but felt the reaction to his failure was too extreme, just as it had been to his success in leading England to World Cup glory in 2003.
"Clive won the World Cup and when he did that he probably got over-praised," the 32-year-old told BBC Five Live's Ian Wright show.
"We all know he is a fantastic coach and a fantastic bloke, but it takes a lot of people to win a World Cup.
"Similarly, the Lions have done disastrously badly and he has been over-criticised, there are a lot of other people to blame as well."
Asked to explain what had gone wrong, Dallaglio said simply: "We didn't have the class that New Zealand had.
"They're a good side, they were playing at home don't forget, but we made them look a lot better than they actually are."
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New Zealand are a good side but we made them look a lot better than they actually are
