Wallabies coach Robbie Deans has attacked referees for unfairly targeting the Australian scrum because of their ”preconceived ideas”.

Privately, Deans has been irritated for a long time over what he believes were blatantly unfair rulings by numerous referees. The Australian scrum has been repeatedly penalised for a variety of reasons – in particular, collapsing – but Deans has largely kept his frustrations to himself.

However, when the team headed from Florence to Paris for the final international of its northern hemisphere tour, Deans decided it was time pressure reverted back on to the referees, arguing the Wallabies’ scrum had been wrongly maligned for too long.

Due to the belief that the Wallabies had a seriously flawed scrum, they have been at the mercy of referees. The Australians were repeatedly penalised up front against Wales in Cardiff, and suffered six set-piece penalties against Italy in Florence on Saturday, before the French referee Christophe Berdos eventually penalised the home team’s front row.

Deans thought that moment could be a crucial turning point for the Australian team. Asked if the refereeing of the scrum in Florence had evolved over the duration of the Test, Deans replied: ”Hallelujah!”

”The really exciting thing was it’s the first instance we’ve had a referee base a decision on reality as opposed to preconceived ideas and give the benefit to the negative incentive,” Deans said. ”As long as referees are provided with negative incentives, teams and players will take it.

”There’s no doubt a lot of decisions in the past have been based around preconception, as opposed to what has actually happened. We saw examples of that last night. Let’s be truthful here, [Italian tight-head prop Martin] Castrogiovanni was having a giggle. He was having a laugh. He probably chose the wrong bloke to do it with, because scrummaging is big in France and Christophe is smart enough to take a look.”

Deans could understand why referees would heavily scrutinise the Australian scrum.

”Sometimes if it’s the easy option to do something that’s already been suggested, it’s an easy out for them,” he said. ”Standing up against the tide is intimidating and challenging for an individual … You can understand their sentiments.”

Deans added that there were many encouraging scrummaging signs against Italy.

”We have an emerging scrum, and are significantly under way,” he said. ”You saw evidence of that last night. James Slipper is 21 and he held Castrogiovanni up when he was trying to have a wee lie down. But he held him up … it was a remarkable effort for a young man.”

The Wallabies coach said another important moment occurred when the Italian scrum, one of the most respected in the world, attempted a massive eight-man shove but didn’t succeed when the Wallabies backrowers stayed on and responded.

”That’s the thing, that’s the adaptation to your opponent,” Deans said. ”We came off a fixture against the All Blacks … they don’t scrummage. They just manipulate, they play the referee constantly. It’s all about trickery. Then you get across to the United Kingdom, and they scrummage more so. There are elements of trickery but they do want to go forward with that trickery.

”You watch the scrummaging in the Heineken Cup and the Top 14, it’s fantastic, but the referees contribute to that because they allow them to scrummage. In the southern hemisphere we contributed to our own demise to a large extent because the referees are afraid of the scrummage. There are a lot less collapses [here] as a result.”