CONNACHT HEAD COACH Andy Friend believes referee Karl Dickson made the right decision to yellow card Leinster scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park for his high tackle on Kieran Marmion during the western province’s Champions Cup defeat.
There were strong calls from the Connacht crowd for Dickson to show Gibson-Park a red car after he made contact with Marmion’s face, but the English referee opted to sin-bin the Ireland international.
Leinster conceded a try during that 10-minute spell but steadied themselves in the closing stages to win 26-21 and carry a five-point lead into the second leg of the Champions Cup Round of 16 tie at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin next Friday.
A red card may have resulted in a different result but Connacht boss Friend said he agreed with Dickson’s decision.
“I thought it was a yellow,” said Friend. “I think there’s so much conjecture around these things at the moment. To me, there was one angle that made it look not good, there was two other angles where you thought there was not much more he can do.
“Now, he definitely hit shoulder on face but I reckon we’ve got to be careful there’s a game. I didn’t think there was any intent.
“I didn’t think there was any intent in Tom Daly’s tackle a few weeks ago [against Leinster]. There was different circumstances. This one had a second defender in there so you can understand a player, Kieran, falling.
“I was OK with it, to be honest, but you just don’t know at this stage whether it’s going to be play on, yellow card, red card. I thought the right decision was made.”
Connacht were ultimately left disappointed in Galway. A five-point lead ahead of the second leg in Dublin means Leinster are firm favourites to advance into the quarter-finals.
But Friend and co. will take some encouragement from the manner of their performance, as they pushed Leinster hard and looked like possibly winning at one stage in the second half.
“We are in it but we didn’t come here to lose tonight, we came to win,” said Friend. “We had a few chances and we missed them, unfortunately.
“We are five points behind now but we can take a lot out of that game. That’s really important to stress that. There was some really good bits in it. There were bits we still need to get better in but we know what we need to do to fix that.
“We’ve got seven days to turn that around and head up to the Aviva and hopefully be better again.
“One thing to be really pleased with is that in attack and defence we saw some of our best moments this year against what is a very good rugby side. If any of our players were in doubt of the systems we’ve put in place, that is now dispelled.
“It’s about everyone sticking to system and doing that. We did it tonight for large chunks and I thought we were very good.”