Martin Roberts has attempted to play down the high tackle that could see New Zealand superstar Dan Carter cited and banned.

Carter left the Millennium Stadium with boos ringing in his ears following an incident that incensed Wales coaches Warren Gatland and Shaun Edwards.

The fly-half escaped censure from referee Craig Joubert, although match citing commissioner - Australian Scott Nowland - may take a different view.

Nowland has until early tomorrow evening to decide whether or not Carter's uncharacteristic indiscretion warrants a disciplinary hearing.

A one-week suspension would rule Carter out of next Saturday's Test against Italy at the San Siro in Milan - a game he could realistically expect to be rested for.

But any longer punishment leaves him in grave danger of missing New Zealand's Twickenham appointment with England on November 21.

The All Blacks had two players - wing Sitiveni Sivivatu and prop Tony Woodcock - cited and suspended following last weekend's victory over Australia in Tokyo, bans that meant they missed the Wales game.

"Looking at the replay it did look quite high," said substitute Wales scrum-half Roberts.

"He did apologise to me. He said 'sorry for the tackle' after the game.

"Things like that happen in games, and you just have to take it on the chin. It looked bad, but I was fine.

"Everyone has got their views and opinions, but as a player you just get on with it. The referee makes decisions."

Gatland, though, has no doubt Carter should have been yellow-carded, claiming: "It was a head-high tackle.

"A guy makes a break in the 22, and if that had happened at the other end then it would have been a penalty and a yellow card.

"All the officials missed it, so we are pretty disappointed with that."

Assistant coach Edwards added: "They should have played the last 10 minutes of the game with 14 men.

"It was a high tackle. You see players get yellow-carded for that - you see players red-carded for that."

All Blacks centre Conrad Smith, while describing the Carter tackle as "one of those things," also admitted New Zealand's general discipline was below standard.

"One of the worrying things was that our discipline still wasn't good enough," he said.

"We gave away far too many penalties and we are letting teams into games.

"I think our defence is really good, and the main way teams are making metres against us is through penalties. There were a lot of silly penalties conceded."

Smith was convinced he had scored one of three New Zealand 'tries' ruled out by television match official, Englishman Graham Hughes.

"I thought I had scored - I thought I got the ball down," he added.

"I am not a big fan of video refs, but that's another story. I think it is a case of half the time referees can usually make the right call when they do it themselves.

"We felt if we kept hold of the ball, things would open up in the game - which is sort of how it turned out. I thought we were a bit unlucky not to score a couple more (tries)."

All Blacks coach Graham Henry said: "We had three tries the TMO (television match official) looked at, and one was pretty obvious.

"That would have given us a gap, and maybe we could have used that. That was a bit disappointing.

"But the guys played very well in the second half and perhaps deserved to win by more."