Row Back Meaning

(Britain, idiomatic) To slightly change a previous opinion about something, or what was said.

Example: 2013, Paul Harris, Lance Armstrong faces multi-million dollar legal challenges after confession (in The Guardian, 19 January 2013)[1]
  Indeed, part of the problem was that Armstrong was rowing back on so much previous behaviour and years of aggressive lambasting of reporters, officials and team-mates who had claimed he was doping. "I don't forgive Lance Armstrong, who lied to me in two interviews. And I suspect most of America won't, either," Kurtz wrote.