The International Rugby Board has made the startling admission that officials erred in denying the Wallabies a replacement last weekend in a Test they finished with 14 men.

Despite an earlier ruling against him, the board has declared Wallabies coach Robbie Deans was, in fact, correct in trying to replace Tatafu Polota-Nau with Saia Fainga'a in the match, which saw the Springboks score a try in the dying minutes of their 31-8 win in South Africa.

An IRB spokesman said yesterday that referee, Alain Rolland, had been right to prevent the substitution.

But the governing body then issued the findings to a review, which concluded that Rolland and his officials had made an embarrassing mistake.

“The area of substitution management is a team effort,” said IRB match official selection committee chairman John Jeffrey in a released statement. “This was an unfortunate case of human error by the match official team, who fully recognise and accept that they made a mistake in the application of the substitution law.”