Warren Gatland labels rant by Rassie Erasmus as ‘strange’ and insists he won’t take to social media to express views on refereeing decisions after Lions lose second Test to South Africa

Warren Gatland has labelled the extraordinary rant earlier this week by South Africa director of rugby Rassie Erasmus as 'strange'.

Erasmus raised a number of concerns over the officiating of referee Nic Berry in the Springboks’ 22-17 defeat in last Saturday’s first Test at Cape Town Stadium.

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He also defended his role as a water carrier and accused Berry of treating home captain Siya Kolisi differently to Alun Wyn Jones, the tourists’ skipper.

The second Test, played in Johannesburg, went the way of the home side, who ran out 27-9 winners to level the series.

However, the Lions may feel aggrieved by certain decisions made by official Ben O'Keeffe, who opted not to send off Springboks star Cheslin Kolbe, who was sin binned for a dangerous tackle on Conor Murray.

But Gatland insists he won't be following his opposite number's lead when commenting on the referee's performance.

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Gatland said: "We've got systems and processes in place and hopefully World Rugby does look at that in terms of making sure everyone follows the protocols.

"I think that's important. We do press conferences to try and give you guys [the media] some information and we deal with the referees and World Rugby.

"I just hope it doesn't get to a situation where you end up with things on Twitter and people airing their views that way and not through the proper channels.

"I found it [Erasmus' video] quite strange that that approach was taken and it's definitely not something that I will get involved with. It's important we keep the integrity of the game up as much as we possibly can.

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 "I just thought it was very interesting. Enough has been said about that and I won't be going on social media. I don't really want to comment on that because I want to let other people take care of that.

"The last thing we need is a war of words and being accused of doing certain things. It's amazing to me how the narrative changed regarding the TMO, I didn't make one comment leading up to the game last week and yet I was accused of questioning his integrity.

"We'll just keep things to ourselves and go through the proper channels when we deal with the referee and talk to the referee after reviewing the game so hopefully we'll get some feedback from him and hopefully we'll give him feedback."