Gamesmanship.

England and Saracens lock Maro Itoje has weighed in on the decisive Tadhg Beirne penalty that helped send Munster in the semi-finals of the Champions Cup.

The win over Edinburgh for Munster means they will now face Itoje’s side in the last four after they swept Glasgow Warriors aside in their quarter final. But what does the England international make up Beirne “milking” the penalty?

Itoje was a guest on BT Sport’s Rugby Tonight last night and while he isn’t too impressed with how Beirne carried himself, he wouldn’t be complaining if it meant his side qualified for the next stage of a big competition

“I think as a player we’re all competitors, we all want to play at the highest level, we all want to get the furthest we can in all these competitions.” Itoje said

“If one one of my teammates did that I probably wouldn’t be too impressed with the way he did it, but the fact that he did it – I could probably sleep easy!

But at the end of the day, Itoje feels that kind of “exaggeration” needs to be “stamped out” of the game. But at the same time says referees need to be on their toes so players won’t “feel the need to do it.”

“It is on the players a bit, but it needs to be stamped out by the referees if we don’t want to see that type of exaggeration of the truth. But in the same vein we need refs to police it. If they see all those things players won’t feel the need to do it.” Itoje added