Dragons badly needed that win.
Last weekend, Bernard Jackman’s side were thumped 52-10 to drop their second game of the Guinness PRO14 season. On Saturday, at Rodney Parade, they got back on track.
Dragons scored first half tries from Arwel Robson and Dafydd Howells and were 16-5 up when, after 58 minutes, their momentum was halted.
Referee Joy Neville was alerted to a dint from Brandon Nansen on Zebre outhalf Carlo Canna.
The lock did not go out of his way to take the Italian international out of it but he was definitely not letting Canna cruise past him. It was a tough one but multiple replays from the Television Match Official did not go in his favour.
Credit: S4CNeville flashed the yellow card and Dragons, rather than driving on for the try-scoring bonus, were forced to dig in and defend their line until they were back to a full compliment.
The game ended 16-5, seeing Dragons climb to fifth in Conference B but Jackman took issue with that Nansen yellow. He said:
“It’s a joke. It’s one of the worst yellow cards… it’s so soft, do you know what I mean?
“It’s a real shame as I thought Joy Neville had a really good game but there was information from the TMO.
“We have to be really hard on dangerous play but I think Canna milked that, to be honest… To me, there was absolutely nothing in it and he (Canna) was laughing after he got the penalty.”
Jackman scoffed at the comparison between Nansen’s yellow and the ‘head-high shot’ that got Leicester’s Will Spencer a red card against Wasps last week. “Every 10 is just going to chip and run into the opposition forwards if we start to give yellow cards for stuff like that,” he added.
“Jôc” Dyna farn Bernard Jackman am y cerdyn melyn
“Joke” that was Bernard Jackman’s reaction to the yellow card@dragonsrugby 16-5 @ZebreRugby pic.twitter.com/3WuPJQn2h5
— S4C Rygbi (@S4CRygbi) September 22, 2018
Neville, a former Ireland international, made history back in February when she became the first woman to referee a top-level men’s rugby game (Ulster vs. Southern Kings) and is a regular on the PRO14 referees panel.
