Leo Cullen’s charges got the better of Pete Wilkins’ Connacht
Mack Hansen had a fine performance in Connacht’s loss to Leinster at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, but produced an even stronger showing post game when he blasted the referee and TMO.
During the first half of Connacht’s 20-12 URC loss, a controversial shoulder to head clean out on Bundee Aki from Jordie Barrett was not looked at by referee Chris Busby or TMO Mark Patton.
However, there was a lengthy viewing of a hit from Josh Ioane on Gus McCarthy, which resulted in a Leinster penalty.
Winger Shane Jennings was also sin-binned for a late and high hit, and his frustrated captain Cian Prendergast could be heard on the ref mic.
He said: “Two headshots against us but the crowd hasn’t reacted so you haven’t gone and looked at the TMO, yes? But the crowd has reacted, and you have gone to TMO. Just keep that in mind.”
After the match, winger Connacht winger Mack Hansen pulled no punches in his assessment of the referees and the refereeing of Connacht in general.
Hansen said: “To be honest, it felt like we were getting reffed out of the game for the first 40 minutes, pretty much.
“Then, we were able to do our thing. We were able to show the exciting rugby that we play.
“We’re not a team for excuses, but that’s what I feel. I feel like the first bit we were getting pressured from what seemed like 16 men against us instead of 15, to be honest to you.”
“Can I say something real quick about the situation.
“Like, I feel like we get this every week. We never get any calls, ever. I’ve been feeling this for years now.
“You can’t possibly tell me yourselves sitting there, like checking the Gus McCarthy one, how much? How much did they check that, 10, 11 times?
“Bundee gets a direct hit to the head, it’s quite obvious, no call, doesn’t care.
“It’s like we get that every time so you can hear the frustration in my voice ‘cos it’s starting to get to the point where, honestly, it’s bull***t and it’s starting to get really frustrating for us ‘cos people will say we are an inconsistent team but Jesus Christ, when you are getting some of the calls we’re getting like, of course, you are going to be.
“I’m not making excuses by any means but like, when you just get it week after week, I feel it’s got to be spoken about because it’s just getting to the point where it’s starting to really piss us off because we just feel we’re getting played out of games and we never ever get any calls.
“Then Josh goes off with a direct hit to the head again and I was talking to the touchie and he goes, ‘oh, when you tackle you lead with the head’.
“That doesn’t make any sense, that’s a penalty regardless.
“He’s actually said he’s hit him in the head with his head but because he was bent over it was fine or something like that, when he’s smacked him in the back of the head with his head and no call at all, not even a look back.
“We get that every time so…[Pete] will be in a tough situation if he said it. It just needs to be said. It’s really f*****g starting to get to us as a team.”
Head coach Wilkins added: “We all appreciate Mack’s honesty. It’s a tough one regarding referees’ performances. More often than not you are talking about TMO performances, who you never really get to meet in person.
“If you feed back to the referees your dissatisfaction, they either agree with you on some of your feedback, which doesn’t make you feel any better because then you know that you were right or they disagree with you which doesn’t make you feel any better because you can’t believe that you are not seeing eye to eye on it.
“All we can control is that we keep feeding it back and after that we see how we go.
“For us, particularly in defeat we put our energy into what we can control and what we can do better and you just hope that everyone else involved in the game is doing similar.”
When asked about the Aki/Barrett incident, Leinster head coach Leo Cullen said: “I saw the clean out but I didn’t think there was that much in it, to be honest.”
