All Blacks first-five Beauden Barrett has offered to help Tadhg Beirne fight a potential ban, after the Irish lock was red-carded for an incident early in their test match in Chicago.
The match eventually ended in a 26-13 win for Barrett's team, but the main talking point was the decision to upgrade Beirne's yellow card for a head clash with Barrett to red.
"I can't hide from the fact that I copped a shoulder to that somewhere up there [his head], that's what happened," said Barrett at Soldier Field after the match. "I'll support him in terms of mitigating whatever happens next, because I don't feel there's any intention there."
Referee Pierre Brousset originally showed Beirne a yellow card, before foul play review official Dan Jones upgraded it to a 20-minute red.
"He may have only deserved a yellow, but 20 [minutes off the field] is absolute worst in this instance," Barrett said. "That's more of me personally feeling for him."
Barrett was also feeling for his brothers, with captain Scott forced to leave the field during the same movement and Jordie sidelined soon after. Both had leg complaints and it's unclear how serious they are.
Irish coach Andy Farrell chose his words carefully, when asked about the incident.
"You've got to be careful what you say, but if you watch it in real time, I don't know how it was transferred to [red]," said Farrell, whose side actually took the lead while down to 14 men. "They've obviously got their reason.
"They've got all their angles, but for me, the only way is to watch it in real time.
"We actually dealt with it pretty well, to be fair, but that doesn't make it any better."
All Blacks coach Scott Robertson simply said: "They said it was a red card, so it's a red card."
Robertson was more forthcoming on how long the process took to get there, though. The officials spent about six minutes to make the initial yellow-card call, after the replay wouldn't play on the Soldier Field big screen, so they gave up and went to the sideline to watch it on a TV.
"It was definitely a process, wasn't it?" Robertson said. "The game was stop-start... because we're in a spectacle, there's parts of it we have to speed up, so people can enjoy our game.
"It's a game of flow, it's a game of being instinctive. How can we help the refs, so we can get a little bit of fatigue in our game, so people can enjoy the last 20 [minutes]."
All Blacks fans certainly would have enjoyed the last 20 minutes of the win, after an opening hour that was a real slog at times. Despite Ardie Savea's breathtaking finish for his first-half try, the game was marred by errors on attack, as both teams seemed to struggle with the reduced width of the pitch.
However, the All Blacks scrum was ultimately the catalyst for the win, after garnering several key penalties and subsequent field position, with Robertson saying that "we love a scrum".
"It was really clear and legal... it's a real strength. Starting and finishing, it's important for whoever comes on.
"Cam [Roigard] scored a beautiful one off a scrum as well, it's a big part of rugby as we know."
The All Blacks went directly to O'Hare International Airport after finishing their media duties and flew to Edinburgh to prepare for next weekend's test against Scotland.
