Eire and Leinster legend Brian O’Driscoll has hit out on the officiating of the conflict between Munster and the Bulls, stating that it was ‘fairly embarrassing’ for the URC.
The Bulls turned the primary South African group to beat Munster at Thomond Park as Jake White’s costs clinched a 16-13 victory.
Nevertheless, the win didn’t come with out some controversy, with Andrea Piardi and his officiating group erroneously decreasing Munster to 14 males for 14 minutes after the Irish province misplaced each their tighthead props by means of harm.
Oli Jager was compelled off to conduct an HIA, which he failed, whereas his alternative, Stephen Archer, sustained a contact harm, which meant that the match needed to proceed with uncontested scrums.
O’Driscoll hits out at officiating errors
As a result of one of many two substitutions was because of an HIA, Munster weren’t required to go down a person based on World Rugby rules and ultimately the Irish province’s case was heard with Alex Kendellen returning to the sphere of play after his 14-minute stint on the sidelines.
Moreover, the Bulls‘ solely strive of the match, scored by Man of the Match Marcell Coetzee, got here after quantity eight Cameron Hanekom had taken a fast faucet from a penalty utilizing his knee.
The truth that it was missed by Piardi and his officiating group significantly irked O’Driscoll, with the Italian referee additionally ignoring Munster fly-half Jack Crowley’s pleas earlier than the playmaker restarted the sport on the kick-off.
“I don’t know if anybody picked up on it, however the Bulls’ first strive taken off Hanekom’s knee,” O’Driscoll stated on Off the Ball.
“The short penalty was taken off the knee, and it had me questioning whether or not I’ve missed a brand new regulation coming in and the referee is correct there, he’s proper beside him.
“And truly Crowley on the restart has a phrase with him and says he tapped it off his knee, ‘Oh no, I didn’t see that’. He was proper there. Three or 4 phases later, they rating.
“That’s a scrum. Munster can then relieve stress. So these components rely.”
Following his errors within the match, Piardi has been excluded from the following spherical of motion as he has not been appointed to any matches as a referee and even as an assistant.
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“Horrible officiating”
The previous Eire captain was additionally not happy by the choice to scale back Munster by a participant after the 2 front-row accidents and believes that it’s embarrassing for the competitors.
“It’s a horrible officiating consequence of decreasing them to 14 males, and it’s fairly embarrassing for the URC,” he continued.
“If the shoe is in your foot with that and also you’re battling and scrapping to strive get your self right into a playoff place, you’ll really feel very exhausting completed by.
“And that’s layered on prime of feeling very exhausting completed by on plenty of fronts anyway. So they’ll really feel that everybody’s out to get them.”
Munster assistant coach Mossie Lawlor has since confirmed that the URC admitted the officiating group made a mistake within the match, following a dialog between ref chief Tappe Henning and interim head coach Ian Costello.
“I’m not going into the main points of the dialog,” stated Lawlor.
“They’ve admitted they’ve made a mistake and we left it at that. Ian has had conversations with Tappe and I suppose the simplest method of placing it’s that the officers made a mistake.
“We chased the choice however we’re actually not specializing in that. Once more it’s not the explanation we misplaced the sport or we’re actually not placing it right down to that.”
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